


Aconitum

by dont_touch_me (orphan_account)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Manipulative Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-06-23 08:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15602586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/dont_touch_me
Summary: Connor is a young, ambitious, but socially-awkward FBI special agent who made a mistake. In order to rectify his past, Connor must travel to southern Michigan to aid the Detroit Police Department in solving a string of serial "sacrifices" caused by the cult calling themselves "RA9".Connor wants nothing more than to complete his mission. He wants nothing more than to please Amanda and earn his place back with the FBI. And he will do anything for his mission.However, of all the calculations Connor could have made and did make, he never once predicted lieutenant Hank Anderson...[DISCONTINUED]





	1. The Hostages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_15 November 2018 – 18:01.03_

_1554 Park Avenue [70 th Floor]_

_Phillips’ Apartment – Crime Scene No.1_

Connor rolled forward to the balls of his feet, completely transfixed, his eyes jumping between the details that decorated the body before him. The victim’s name was John Phillips, aged thirty-eight at the time of death, weighing approximately one-hundred-eighty pounds – he had a balanced diet of greens, fish, white meats, and dense starches, all of which were evident in the kitchen…question: who cooked the meals? – and reaching a height of no taller than six foot even. His pupils were blown wide, irises a milky grey instead of a soft, moss green as seen in his passport photo and driver’s license.

The man’s body laid at an awkward angle, his chin resting on his right shoulder and torso propped against a side table. Connor glanced over the gunshot wounds – one to the left abdominal cavity, a fatal trauma, and two to the right and left sides of the thoracic cavity, causing a pneumothorax – as he slipped his gloved hand under John Phillips’ left one. The radiating heat and lack of rigidity in the limb made Connor’s skin crawl. He swallowed around a knob in his windpipe as he inspected John Phillips’ palm, fingers, and nails. Underneath the victim’s fingernails were, indeed, traces of red ice – a variant of benzoylmethylecgonine cut with secobarbital sodium, costing approximately sixty US dollars per gram – as the CSIs had informed him earlier.

Based on the absence of rotting smell, the colors of John Phillips’ skin, eyes, lips, and fingernails, and the state of the body – not distended but warm, pliant, and maneuverable – Connor presumed John Phillips’ had been dead no longer than four hours.

The same followed for Caroline Phillips.

Connor rose to his feet and rounded the first corpse, side-stepping around an overturned couch cushion – warm beige fabric made with sturdy, porous fibers that easily retained grease, smell, and oils; likely a multi-thousand US dollar piece of furniture or a successful mock product – as he padded carefully across the living area to Caroline Phillips’ body.

The apartment was surprisingly bare save for necessities and niceties such as the cherrywood dining room table or the grand piano – Yamaha, model C-Three, costing approximately eighteen-thousand US dollars pre-owned – in the corner. The floors were pristine but showed signs of obsessive cleaning – clear stains and streaks where cleaner was overused, typical of a bleach-based product – and the kitchen nearby was bright and white.

Connor knelt before Caroline Phillips – aged thirty-seven at death, roughly one-hundred-ten pounds and approximately five-foot-one to five-foot-two-inches tall – as he began to glance over the corpse. The anterior side of her body posed no wounds nor signs of struggle despite the puddles of blood underneath where she lay sprawled on the floor. In front of her, three feet above ground level, the countertop was stained with small smears of red.

Even in death, the second victim was perfect. Her hair showed signs of heat abuse, likely due to manic straightening of naturally curly hair, and Connor flinched as he felt his own strands tickling his forehead. He looked up and over, noting the balcony door was cracked open and the white linen curtains tip toed in the evening breeze.

He glanced back down. Caroline Phillips’ clothing was steamed and pressed for perfection and all stains and wrinkles appeared to have happened postmortem. Based on the clothing she wore, Connor suspected her wardrobe totaled to nearly four-hundred US dollars per outfit, excluding accessories, makeup, and perfumes.

Her work badge – DMC Harper University Hospital, Three-One-One Mack Avenue, approximately one-point-three miles from the high rise apartment complex – was cleaned of all smears and lacked wear across the barcode despite her records stating she had been an employee for over nine years. Constant replacements were in order, then, as well as requiring an unobstructed record to obtain several new badges per year without raising suspicion from police guards and staff services.

The deduction came quite cleanly; Caroline Phillips likely suffered from undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder or obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder paired with a possible mood disorder such as major depressive disorder or seasonal affective disorder, with prospective that it was either disclosed to no one save for a handful of close individuals, it was misdiagnosed – an unlikely outcome – or it was undiagnosed. Based on the fact that Connor saw no medical records or history indicating her suffering from such illnesses, he decided it would have likely been the third option.

Connor popped to his feet. He looked between Caroline Phillips and John Phillips, then over his shoulder to the warm, purple room in the back of the apartment where--

“You got anything yet, kid?” Special agent Perkins sauntered into the main living area from behind Connor. Connor heard the man’s feet shuffle, stop, and split apart, the soles of his Bruno Magli shoes sliding against the floors, suggesting a widening stance. The typically unnatural posture was used to assert dominance, power, and control, Connor noted.

Connor licked his lips. “I have yet to finish gathering evidence.” he stated simply. “What information have you obtained, agent Perkins?”

As Perkins began to speak, Connor rooted through his left coat pocket for his fidget – a half-dollar, Kennedy, issued nineteen-seventy-five, approximately twelve-point-five grams in weight compounded with ninety-percent silver and ten-percent copper – and, as his fingers brushed the cool, ridged coin, he instantly pulled it out and began to flip it in his palm.

“--and there’s two DPD detectives downstairs questioning some people. That’s about all I’ve got, though.” Perkins sighed. “This crime scene makes no sense. There’s no logic to it. How did this even happen? How did someone get to the seventieth floor unnoticed?”

Connor tossed the coin in the air, absently catching it, as he faced agent Perkins. He looked down at the man’s shoulders as he spoke, “I have an idea, agent Perkins. Please be patient.”

Perkin’s eyebrows raised. “You already got it? Seriously?”

“Yes.” Connor nodded curtly. He pocketed his fidget.

He heard Perkins mutter “of course you do” as Connor strode over to the balcony door and pulled it open. Cold bit his face and hands as he maneuvered outside and around the lawn ornaments towards the northmost ledge of the high rise’s roof.

The seventy-story drop led to the main road where the bright lights darkened the corners of Connor’s vision, blinding his peripheries. Red and blue ghosted the walls of the surrounding buildings as police blockades covered four city blocks, rerouting all traffic.

Scaling the front of the high rise, Connor realized, was too risky. On the adjacent apartment building, there were ten windows per floor facing the front of the Phillips’ building, with a total of eighty-two floors, leaving the maximum number of witnesses to be one-thousand-six-hundred-twenty people after taking into account the four-person limit per apartment, two windows per one household, all apartments being owned, and the first floor being reserved for staff, maintenance, and the lobby.

Connor looked to his right. An unnaturally blue pool sat stagnant and uncovered in the crisp November weather. On his left, Connor saw faux-plants and concrete potter boxes. He shuffled over as he scanned the westmost ledge. Five feet to his left he saw scuff marks – wide, approximately two-inches each, made from metal or metal-alloy that was teethed or grooved for sufficient grip support – that were scraped down the sides of the stone. Grappling from an alleyway made far more sense, logically speaking, but how would the unsub have secured the hooks from the ground?

In the darkness, Connor could barely make out the shadowy bones of a fire escape secured to the side of the building across the alley. The next door building had sixty-eight floors and was approximately ten feet away from the Phillips’ high rise, leaving a twenty-foot incline and ten foot gap to throw the hooks should the unsub have stood at the top of the fire escape. The likelihood of success was lower than twenty-percent, Connor guessed, but twenty was higher than zero, and perhaps the unsub was a skilled climber?

He turned around to reenter the apartment when he narrowly avoided running into another man. He was shorter than Connor – approximately three to four inches shorter, weighing around one-hundred-eighty pounds – with a square face and small eyes. Lines of irritation seemed permanently etched into the man’s face.

“Watch where you’re walking, asshole.” The man spat. Connor stared at him, remembering from his reports that the man before him was one of the two Detroit Police Department detectives assigned to the RA-Nine cult cases. He was detective Gavin Reed, aged thirty-six, born and raised in downtown Detroit, who was average in both field work and academic work back at the police academy. Hiring him for the complex killings of RA-Nine made little sense to Connor, as the Detroit Police Department must have known his credentials were quite dull compared to--

“What’re you staring at?” Reed snarled.

Connor blinked. He glanced behind Reed, looking away, as soon as he realized he had been, indeed, staring at detective Reed for approximately fourteen-point-four seconds straight. He recalled his social training handbook wherein, on page eight, he was reminded that “staring for long bouts of time causes insecurity, discomfort, and confusion amongst most individuals, whereas constant avoidance of eye contact stipulates the same emotions; therefore, one should find a steady balance of eye contact and eye avoidance to create a soothing and natural atmosphere”.

“I apologize, detective Reed. I was lost in thought. My name is special agent Connor Dechart with the FBI.” Connor tilted his head slightly and relocked his gaze with Reed’s own crinkled glare. “Is there anything I can assist you with, detective?”

“How’d you know my name? And what the fuck were you staring at?” Reed scowled. His lip curled and shoulders tightened. Connor, at first, did not understand the conditions of the detective’s questions; specially, the second inquiry. Had he been referring to what Connor was looking at over the edge of the high rise? Or perhaps why Connor was looking at him in particular?

Connor said, “I know your name from reading the reports from the previous RA-Nine crime scenes, to which you were referred to on numerous occasions. Regarding your second question, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you are asking. Would you please elaborate?”

Reed’s face twisted. “The fuck? I mean why are you staring _at me_? What? I got something in my teeth? What is it?”

“There is no immediate issue with your teeth that I can see, detective Reed. However, you may want to inform your dentist of a slight discoloration of your upper right central incisor, possibly caused by permanent damage to the enamel, which can--”

“Perkins!” Reed shouted. Connor snapped his mouth shut. “Perkins, where’d the FBI find this robot? He’s ridiculous!”

Connor had heard several insults in the past. ‘Robot’ was no exception to the list and, in fact, was quite a commonality, as most epithets centered around his personality or behaviors being synthetic or somehow inhuman. He recalled children on the playgrounds at school frequently using the nicknames ‘pea-brain’ or ‘retard’, to which Connor had promptly informed them that, no, he had no limited capacity for learning as the names suggested because, unlike them, he was considered a savant and had a higher percentage of retaining valuable information compared to that of his peers.

In turn, Connor was promptly punched in the stomach and kicked in the jaw.

“Detective Reed, I have found something that is important to the investigation.” Connor stated. Reed’s attention snapped back to Connor.

He remembered his book, page thirty-seven, “learning to deflect unwanted interactions is difficult, but of upmost importance” wherein “one suggestion would be to change topics, or allow for a shift in conversation, as drawing the subjects’ attention from a topic that confuses or disturbs them to a topic of more understanding will diffuse further tension”.

Reed’s eyebrow popped up. “Oh yeah, and what’s that?”

Connor nodded. “I believe that these markings indicate how the unsub scaled the building. Using grappling hooks, the unsub--”

“Hey, Perkins, Anderson, we’ve got something!” Reed interrupted again. Connor’s mouth twitched, itching for him to continue his explanation, but he swallowed the urge lest Reed glower at him once again, or worse, interrupt for a third time. It was beginning to make Connor’s eye twitch with irritation.

Perkins stepped outside onto the balcony, cursing softly and rubbing his hands together. Behind him, a tall, older man – approximately six-foot-three to six-foot-four-inches in height, weighing roughly two-hundred-twenty to two-hundred-fifty pounds – followed. Clipped to the man’s right hip was a Detroit Police Department badge, half-hidden by his long coat. Connor recognized him as Hank Anderson, aged sixty-four, retiring in two months, three weeks, and five days from his post as a lieutenant, a title that he had held since the age of thirty, where he became the youngest lieutenant in Detroit Police Department history.

Connor also knew the man had lost his son, Cole Anderson, six months, one week, and two days ago. How or why was not reported in Anderson’s file, which equally perplexed Connor as it did frustrate him. The curiosity gnawed at the base of his brain.

Perkins scratched the side of his head and yawned, “What’ve you got, Dechart?” He folded his arms tightly across his chest. A defensive gesture wherein the situation caused severe discomfort, instability – Connor shivered as the wind picked up – or perhaps the agent was simply cold. Connor ruled that as the likely result.

“I have discovered evidence suggesting the use of grappling hooks, agent Perkins. Furthermore, I deduce that the unsub was specifically chosen for such a complex task, possibly making them an expert with climbing or scaling whether it be through a hobby or profession.”

Anderson frowned. “So he just climbed up and opened a can of whoop-ass? Nobody heard the gunshots. What do you make of that?”

“Please use neutral pronouns for the unsub, detective Reed. We have yet to determine whether or not the perpetrator is male or female.” Connor stepped away from the ledge. “I also figured that a silencer was used as soon as we received the call from the Detroit Police Department, as reports of gunshots would have been the first thing we heard and, therefore, we would have been called to the crime scene far earlier than when we were, and we would have been armed as well. It _is_ the most obvious possibility, detective.”

Reed mumbled, “Smartass.”

“So,” Anderson sniffed loudly. He stepped next to Connor. “You think a woman could have done this?”

While it _was_ unlikely, Connor hadn’t planned to rule out the possibility completely. Indeed, when children – especially young children – were introduced into a crime scene, the likelihood of a woman being the perpetrator dwindled significantly as motherly affection and hind-brain instinct demanded the woman not harm the child. However, a murder of children by a woman was not unheard of it past events. Connor reached for his coin again, but didn’t pull it from his pocket. “I find it… _unlikely_ , that a woman would be the perpetrator of such crimes, but dealing in absolutes during an investigation is often a hindrance, not an aid. Please keep this in perspective for future crime scenes, detective Anderson.”

Anderson boiled over, his face mocking amusement but his eyes betraying his aggression. Connor straightened his back instinctually.

“Hey, Dechart,” Perkins called from behind him. “You haven’t gone into the girl’s room yet. Get in there, finish up your thingy, and let’s get out of here. I’m beat.”

A swell of anxiety ballooned under Connor’s sternum. The last time he had seen such brutal mutilation of a human body, he had stormed from the classroom, wheezing uncontrollably, unable to compose himself, seeing only red and red and more red as professors and classmates alike attempted to calm him down. The last time he had seen a little girl, so similar to Emma Phillips--

“I…” Connor’s fingers buzzed for his fidget. “You are right, agent Perkins.” He tightened his tie and breathed in deep. Anderson’s head inched up as he watched. “I will investigate the scene now.”

His feet moved on their own, bringing him across the apartment as if he were weightless. His mind trailed far behind, still left out in the cold on the balcony, remembering Amanda’s eyes, crisp and chilling, even more so than the winter weather outdoors, as she forced him to look over the butchered corpses, the limbs and fingers and ripped organs again and again and again, demanding, “What happened here, Connor? Tell me what happened. You must investigate the scene. You _will_ accomplish your _mission_ , Connor. You will be the most intelligent cadet in FBI history. You must tell me what happened. Complete your _mission_.” She raised her hand, then, and Connor snapped back to life as he stood outside Emma Phillips’ room.

He blinked more times than he could count. The collar of his shirt strangled him. He loosened his tie, huffed in frustration, and tightened it back up again. With one quick breath, Connor stepped inside the room.

Emma Phillips was mutilated beyond recognition. Connor didn’t even know where to start – the wounds, the wood in her hands, her eyes or lack thereof, her positioning, the evidence around him? – and he twisted around fast, sending his vision sprawling to keep up as he rushed to the girl’s desk and lifted up her tablet. A suitable distraction, Connor deemed, as he resumed a video playing on YouTube.

A videogame popped up on screen, as well as a man’s profile in the top right corner. As the man’s mouth began to move, commentating the game he played, Connor heard his muffled voice coming from a pair of headphones nearby. Wireless headphones, Connor noted, with volume set at maximum  – repeated exposure to eighty-five decibels or higher often resulted in premature and permanent hearing loss – and Connor realized that Emma Phillips likely did not hear her attacker enter the room, nor did she hear the unsub murder her parents only a few feet from her bedroom door.

Connor pushed himself further into the recesses of his mind as he turned around. He observed her corpse objectively – twenty-eight stab wounds to the thoracic and abdominopelvic cavities, none deviating to limbs, face, throat, or groin – and moved forward to examine the injuries themselves. The knife that was used had teeth, as chunks of flesh and organ spewed across the crime scene, black gummy chunks in a sea of dark red. The wounds fit the modus operandi perfectly, Connor noted. It was definitely a crime by an RA-Nine member, but with different circumstances.

In Emma Phillips’ hands, resting over her left breastplate, was the trademark statuette of RA-Nine: wooden, hand-carved with a knife, strokes moving in a downward motion, entirely made of fresh cedar block. He leaned down and over, squinting in the dim-lit room to see the subtle ‘R’ and ‘A’ carved into the bottom of the statue’s base, followed by a large ‘nine’ below the letters.

The evidence began to knit itself together, slowly, as Connor rose up and glanced outside of the bedroom. Anderson, Reed, and Perkins were scattered about the apartment, Anderson towering in front of John Phillips’ body. From the bedroom, Connor had a good look at the washed-over gaze of John Phillips’ corpse. The man’s eyes looked like they were judging Connor, screaming at him, wailing in agony for him to stop, to move, to let him see his daughter one last time and Connor quickly averted his gaze--

Emma Phillips.

She was too close.

Everything was too close.

He stifled a shriek as he stumbled back, back to the wall and then he lurched forward because there was blood on the wall, there was blood everywhere, and he felt his thoughts retreat to Amanda, to her stern gaze, to her words, “complete the mission” and Connor gasped, eyes flying open – when had he closed his eyes? – when Hank Anderson grabbed his upper arm.

“Hey, steady there, agent.” Anderson’s grip tightened.

Connor’s voice cracked. “Don’t touch me.” He jerked away. “Please do not touch me. I don’t like to be touched please don’t touch me, please, I don’t like to be touched--”

Anderson released him as if he were on fire. “All right, all right, calm down…” His opened hands flew up to his head. “Just relax.”

Connor pushed past him. He tasted the sick in his throat, burning his nose, his air, and he stumbled outside. He launched to his right, tumbling into the bathroom and collapsed on the tile – white, thirteen inches by thirteen inches even, polished and made of pearl and marble--

He threw himself over the toilet and coughed up the contents of his lunch, a watery, gross sound even to his own ears. He heard Reed snickering outside the bathroom, followed by a few unknown voices mumbling “Jesus Christ” or “what the hell…”. Connor’s ears burned, his cheeks dusted with blush as his gut clenched again and he heaved involuntarily. Nothing but spit and air came up. One hand flew up to the toilet bowl, grasping hard in a white-knuckled grip, the other jumped up to his hair, fisting the strands between his fingers. A third tugged at his tie and popped the top button of his shirt.

Anderson’s face swam into view as Connor blinked tightly around the tears.

“Just breathe through it. Trust me, it doesn’t help to fight.” Connor noted the stench of alcohol on his breath, potent and fruity, likely recent, before his stomach squeezed and his body was wracked with shivers all over. “Shit, kid…”

Connor gasped through his mouth. “P-Please don’t t-touch--”

“I’m not touching you, calm down.” Anderson continued to tug at Connor’s tie until it unknotted and pooled in Connor’s lap. The lieutenant leaned back slightly. “Just…take it easy. I puked on my first scene, too. Some guy hung himself weeks before we got a call. He was so rotted through that his legs were on the floor but his torso was still strung up. Pretty fucking nasty.”

Connor groaned softly, and Anderson winced. “Shit, my bad. Don’t think about that. Just…don’t worry much about it, all right?”

“I-I made a m-mistake.” Connor choked out. His mouth stopped salivating and he swallowed around the acidity. “I made a mistake.” He repeated.

Anderson shook his head. “Puking on the crime scene would have been a mistake. You didn’t, so I consider that a win.”

Connor pushed himself up off the ground and to the sink. He washed out his mouth with the cold tap, the chill softening the unbearable goosebumps that pricked his skin. “I contaminated the crime scene and became compromised. I apologize for my unprofessional behavior and overall failure.”

“Jesus, kid, slow your roller, there.” Anderson rose, his joins popping in rhythm. “Nobody said you failed anything. What’re you getting all worked up for?”

Connor turned off the faucet and bent over, picking his tie up and beginning to pull it through a knot. “There is no excuse for my actions. I apologize.”

Anderson’s hand fell on Connor’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it--”

“Do not touch me.” Connor hissed back. “And as for your proposition to ‘not beat myself up over it’, lieutenant, I would like to remind you that, as investigators, it is our duty to remain professional and compatible with the crime scene at all times.” He tightened the necktie and straightened his jacket. “Moreover, I would have assumed that the Detroit Police Department would have instilled more disciplinary actions into their senior officers as it seems both you and detective Reed display signs of insubordination, unprofessionalism, and an overall lacking in understanding the protocols of police interactions and wardrobe attire.”

Anderson’s face slackened, but his gaze was coiled tight with anger. Connor’s jaw tightened.

“You’re kind of a prick, aren’t you?” Anderson snapped.

Connor, once again, was confused. A ‘prick’ was a relatively new insult, and found that Anderson’s implications stated that he was “a man regarded as stupid, unpleasant, or contemptible”, but whether it was in relation to his contamination of the crime scene or his behavior and previous words was beyond Connor. Normally, Connor would have regarded his handbook, page thirteen, wherein “when one is confused, ask politely, ‘please elaborate’ or ‘please explain further’, remembering to use the word ‘please’ in all aspects, even in the most informal of situations.” However, instead, Connor blurted out, “I… _what?_ ”

 Anderson’s lip curled. “You’re just a prick, aren’t you? Don’t play well in the sandbox with others, eh, Dechart?”

“Lieutenant--”

“I try to help you, you don’t want it. I try to help you _again_ , you don’t want it, _again_. I try a _third_ time, and then you say I’m unprofessional and have got a shit sense of fashion?”

“I apologize for any frustrations I have caused, but your wardrobe _is_ \--”

“Fuck off.” Anderson’s hand wagged in front of him as if Connor were a gnat. “Just fuck off. Take your fucking protocols and shove them where the sun don’t shine, you hear?” The lieutenant pushed past Connor and circled back into Emma Phillips’ room.

Connor felt his stress levels rising. He pulled his fidget from his pocket and began to flip it over his knuckles. He wanted to go home. Now.

No. Amanda would want him to collect evidence. She would want him to question Anderson and Reed for information regarding what the staff and the woman who dialed the police had to say. She would want him to reconstruct the scene. He always reconstructed the scenes.

Connor stepped out of the bathroom and walked to where Reed and Perkins were leaned against a far wall. Reed smirked and asked, “You good, cupcake? Done talking to the toilet?” The man chortled, and Perkins’s mouth quirked.

Ignoring Reed, Connor turned to Anderson, who hovered in the doorway of Emma Phillips’ bedroom. “Detective Anderson, may I ask as to what the woman who called the first responders had to say?”

The lieutenant’s frown remained but he said, gruffly, “She was a friend of Caroline Phillips’. Said she and the miss were supposed to have dinner with some coworkers, but when Caroline didn’t meet her downstairs in the lobby, she headed up and found them like this.”

“I see…” Connor said. “Did she mention anything about John and Caroline’s relationship?”

Anderson’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, actually. Said Caroline was acting weird for about two weeks. When she asked her what was wrong, Caroline said that she and mister Phillips here got in a little kerfuffle. Don’t know what about, though.”

“Trouble in paradise, then.” Reed shrugged, laughing ironically. “Maybe they duked it out with a pair of pistols between them like some _Mr. and Mrs. Smith_ kind-of shit.”

“That’s incorrect.” Connor told Reed, whose expression blackened. The evidence clicked together, aligning perfectly, strung up by the wires in Connor’s mind. Connor nodded and turned to Perkins. “I believe I am finished, agent Perkins. Allow me to reconstruct the scene.”

Reed’s eyebrows wagged with anticipation and Perkins turned to him, a sly smile curving his lips. “Now this is where it really gets good, Gav.”

Connor walked back into the main living area, distantly registering the footsteps following behind him as Anderson, Reed, and Perkins regrouped near him.

Strands of evidence tied together, formulating a story, playing like a movie reel before Connor’s eyes. Connor took a deep breath, and began, “John Phillips became compromised. Approximately two weeks prior, he and Caroline had gotten into a disagreement, as detective Anderson had said. And by the state of Caroline Phillips’ apartment and appearance, despite having a young child where messes are a commonality, she continuously cleaned and organized things to perfection, suggesting that she suffered from an undiagnosed case of mild obsessive-compulsive disorder, or something akin to it. John Phillips likely could not handle the stress of her illness and, therefore, turned to benzoylmethylecgonine or, as commonly referred to, cocaine.

“John Phillips likely stumbled onto a dealer of red ice on accident. As you know, red ice is exclusionary to that of the cult known as RA-Nine, who produce a special compound of benzoylmethylecgonine and secobarbital sodium. Evidence of John Phillips using red ice is found underneath his fingernails, where crystals still remain, suggesting his last hit was, at most, two days ago, as it takes approximately forty to forty-eight hours for the compound to dissolve under the stress of natural human oils.”

Connor felt his words quickening. He absently pulled out his coin and began to toss it. “RA-Nine likely lured John Phillips in with red ice but, as it is well know that RA-Nine cult members likely kill for initiation lest they be killed for not being initiated, it can be safely assumed that John Phillips refused to become a murderer and therefore had a hit placed upon his head.

“RA-Nine initiations are simple tasks. One must break into the designated one-person household and murder the victim with twenty-eight stab wounds, followed by the removal of the eyes and placement of the hand-carved statuette. However, this was likely not an initiation ceremony, as this was a three-person household and two of the three people were shot and killed, which is obviously not the modus operandi of the cult. Therefore, I conclude that this was a warning by means of demonstration.”

Anderson’s voice broke Connor’s revere. “Demonstration to who?”

“ _Whom_ , lieutenant.” Connor correct. “And I believe that the murderer was forcing John Phillips to watch his daughter being killed as repentance for disobeying the cult leader’s initiation orders. Judging by the angle of his body and the wounds inflicted, it would have taken him approximately six to ten minutes to die, allowing for the unsub to properly sacrifice Emma Phillips while John Phillips watched from the sidelines, unable to move due to his wounds.”

“That’s fucked.” Reed mumbled.

Perkins pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, what, he climbed up the side of the building with grappling hooks, shot Caroline Phillips, then John Phillips, and then _mutilated_ their daughter in front of him to, what, send him a message as he headed towards the light? Seems kind of pointless, doesn’t it?”

“Correct,” Connor said. “That is why I believe the immediate action was for John Phillips to witness, but the overall message was for us. Proof, if you will, that the RA-Nine cult is violent and not willing to back down. In fact, it could be further proof that RA-Nine is growing in size and with more determination than ever before.”

“Holy shit…” The words tumbled from Reed’s mouth like a whisper. “You just…knew all of that? How the fuck…”

Connor looked to Reed as Perkins said, “Told you it gets damn good. Kid’s a fucking machine.”

Anderson hummed softly as he scanned Connor over. Connor pocketed his coin quickly before saying, “And, if it will not hinder the investigation, I would like to go home now.”

 

 

  

_15 November 2018 – 19:17.56_

_1777 3 rd Avenue [9th Floor, Room No. 908]_

_The Grande Hotel – Temporary Living Quarters_

Connor felt his thoughts buzzing behind his ears as the dial tone ran, a steady, even sound echoing in the forefront of his mind. He held his breath as the ringing cut out and was replaced by Amanda’s voice, “Connor.” she said. “I’m glad you were able to call me. How was your flight?”

“It was cumbersome, but relatively plain.” He blinked down at his socks – eighty-percent cotton, sixteen-percent polyester, two-percent natural latex rubber, two-percent spandex, colored in black with blue polka dots – as he sat on the edge of his hotel bed and continued, “The flight was delayed one hour and thirty-seven minutes despite clear weather conditions and…”

Amanda’s silence flooded his senses. It was painful, making Connor wince.

“My apologies, Amanda.” He whispered. “I became…distracted.”

“You know how I feel about your distractions, Connor.” Amanda said. “Tell me about your mission. How is it progressing? Do you have any substantial leads?”

“I…We have yet to uncover the location of RA-Nine as well as the perpetrator of tonight’s incident.” Connor informed. “However, while I successfully reconstructed another crime scene, I…” His anxiety reminded him of his mistake. Of Anderson’s pitiful gaze and Reed’s deplorable laugh as he threw up during an investigation, during a _mission_ , and Connor quickly changed the tracks in his mind. “…I discovered I am relatively compatible with the Detroit Police Department’s officers, and I am intrigued by lieutenant Hank Anderson. He has the credentials of a prominent and authoritative figure, but lacks the presentation and personality of one.” Connor rolled the pink skin of his lip between his teeth. “He…perturbs me.”

“You must stay focused on your mission, Connor.” Amanda demanded. “Nothing else matters to you, do you understand me? Nothing matters to you but your completion of this mission.” Her voice deepened considerably as she asked, “You don’t want me to reprimand you for another failure, do you? You don’t want a repeat of the Zlatko mission, do you?”

“No, Amanda.” He cleared his throat. “But I…I would like to ask you a question regarding the Zlatko incident, Amanda.”

“ _Mission_ ,” Amanda corrected. “Not ‘incident’, but _mission_.”

“My apologies, the Zlatko _mission_ \--”

Amanda snapped, “Not right now, Connor.”

“But I would like to apologize for my actions, and I would like to explain--”

“No, Connor.”

“But mom--” Connor choked. His blood curdled. He stopped breathing, only for a moment, as Amanda sighed over the line. “M-My apologies, _Amanda_. I…I…That was unprofessional--”

“Good night, Connor.” Amanda’s voice was too soft. Connor noted, many years ago, that when her voice softened, her eyes hardened and her hand would raise high above her head, her slaps stinging badly but her words even more so.

He had disappointed her yet again. He had disappointed Amanda once again and he struggled to even say, “good night, Amanda” and leave it as that. Her end of the line cut abruptly and Connor snapped to his feet, padding quickly across the room and to his desk chair where his jacket hung off the back. He dug through the left pocket, yanked out his fidget, and balanced the coin across his knuckles before letting it fall into his palm and flip up into the air with a precise flick.

Connor dropped into the chair and closed his eyes, popping the coin horizontally between his fists as he locked himself away into his mind. There, he found security. He saw his brother’s hands, his smile, as he placed the ratty, off-orange headphones over Connor’s ears and said, “listen, just listen”. The volume had been quiet, just as Connor had liked, and he listened. Listened to the beat of the music, the thrumming vocals and the strumming of the guitar as he had felt himself relax into his brother’s bean-bag chair.

He could still hear the song in his head. As he caught the coin in his right hand, Connor drifted off with the ghost of the music still resonating in his ears.


	2. Meeting Anderson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_16 November 2018 – 05:38.57_

_Park Avenue_

_Edison Memorial Fountain – Break Location No. 1_

Connor slowed his running pace to a light jog, his feet bouncing flimsily as his legs burned – a result lactic acid, also known as two-hydroxypropanoic acid – and chest heaved. If his calculations were correct, as they always were, he had ran seven-point-five miles in forty-six minutes and, after allowing for fifteen-minutes for preparation, stretching, and traffic, it gave him a general pace of four minutes and forty-eight seconds per mile.

With a hard exhale, Connor doubled over, sweating despite the November chill as his eyes caught on every shadow that moved. The city was relatively depopulated at such an hour, leaving the streets cold and bare and the buildings to tower like grainy pillars against the bruise-blue sky. He straightened himself and reached for the railing around the memorial park before stretching out his aching legs.

The memorial, a small, green patch of grass with a tree in the center, was quaint, but did little to diffuse the tension suffocating the city. Connor’s gaze fluttered. He expected someone to leap from the shadows. He expected to hear rushing feet before feeling a knife sliding between his vertebra. He expected danger, leaving him edged and feeling too full, like a cup overflowing with water.

Oddly enough, it had reminded him of the first time he had met Amanda. Initially, emotions were too much for him, making him feral. The nurses had struggled to contain him as he thrashed and pleaded for a semblance of normality. He would pull chunks of his hair and rip his clothes and scream until his throat was raw. Emotions became another overstimulating hindrance.

But then Amanda walked in. Her face fell to passivity but her eyes were sharper than a straight-edge. “I will help you.” She had said. Her voice was warm. Her soul was on fire. “I will _fix_ you. You’ll be better. I’ll _make_ you better.”

And she had.

Amanda had asked the nurses when Connor would once again walk without aids or company. They had said never. Amanda had said six months. He had done it in three.

Amanda taught him to take in his emotions, to bring them into his arms and hold them close before shoving them into a lockbox. She had taught him how to control himself.

Without Amanda, Connor was nothing. Without Amanda, Connor wasn’t Connor. He wasn’t the Connor that he had known for over fifteen years. He had been that overflowing cup in his youth, confused and angry and overstimulated by the world, and Amanda had shut off the faucet, poured out the glass, and filled him with something new. Something that burned. Something that lit on fire and blazed bright.

Connor flipped back to reality as a man shuffled towards him, clothes ragged and face clawed by a corpse-like lifelessness. “Hey…” the stranger mumbled.

“Good morning.” Connor stood upright, towering over the tiny man.

The stranger stuttered, “Y-You got any change?” An uneducated individual, Connor noted, likely without a high school diploma as his sentences lacked proper verbiage such as the addition of ‘do’ and the possessive ‘have’, instead utilizing ‘got’, the past tense of ‘get’, which was grammatically incorrect. Unless, of course, the man was attempting to ask ‘you _’ve_ _got_ change?’ which would not only be lacking ‘have’ but would also suggest that the man had prior knowledge of Connor already being with money.

Connor wiped the sticky sweat from his chin. He contemplated whether or not the man before him was actually in need of money for the sake of livelihood and survival or if, in layman’s terms, he was a beggar. Neither his book nor training with Amanda had taught him the particulars of each situation which left Connor to fend for himself. “I do.” He nodded. “A half-dollar coin of the thirty-fifth president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, which was issued in--”

“Give it here.” The man whispered. His face was wild with emotions Connor couldn’t read.

Connor’s cheek twitched. “Pardon?”

“Give it here!” The stranger reached behind his back. He whipped forward a shiv – approximately four inches to the handle and two to the blade, made of metal, rubber bands, duct tape, and two detached razor blades – and jabbed it up at Connor’s neck. “I got this! So give it here! Now!”

“A shiv, also known as a _shank_ in America, was likely derived from the Romani word _chivomengro_ , or ‘knife’. They are common amongst incarcerated persons.” Connor glanced at the tool, then back to the man. “Are you an escaped convict? I should tell you that I am working in tandem with the Detroit Police Department and, if you were to have been participating in illegal activities, that would garner your immediate arrest.”

The man balked. He held the shank higher. “G-Give it here! Give the cash to me!”

“I can assure you that a fifty-cent coin is relatively useless pertaining to people of your standards. It will not buy you illegal substances nor any other derogatory means of consolidation that you seek.” Connor watched as a stumbling figure neared them. His brain screamed for him to be on high alert. “In fact, you would have higher chances of acquiring money if you were to rob that person behind you, at your seven o’clock.”

Connor looked up at the figure once again. He recognized the wideset shoulders and ratty, long hair. Even in the darkness of the early morning, Connor could see the slackened face of lieutenant Hank Anderson. Connor hummed, “On second though, perhaps not.” He looked down at the jittery criminal. “I doubt he has any more money to spare. He likely spent it all at a bar, as mass consumption of alcoholic drinks is this man’s forte.”

Anderson tumbled against the memorial railing, his eyes jumping between Connor and the stranger, as if he were in disbelief of their appearance before him. “The _fuck?_ Aren’t you…” He pointed to Connor and burped. “And you!” His finger swung to the other man and he frowned deeper. “You’re Juliani Mortez. I bagged your ugly mug months ago. Already back at it again?”

Mortez jolted. The shank in his hand rattled as he shook with fear.

Connor looked over at Anderson and said, “Good morning, lieutenant.” Anderson leaned heavily over the railing and grumbled. Connor turned back to Mortez, flashed a quick, crooked smile, and reached forward, plucking the shiv from the man’s grasp – three fingers; pointer, middle, and thumb, moving in an upwards motion with a firm hold on the flat ends of the blade so as to avoid injury or accidental cuts – and flipping it in his hand. “Have a good morning, Juliani Mortez. And please make wiser decisions in the future, as the next offense will prompt your immediate retrieval and arrest.”

Mortez scurried back into the shadows of the city. Connor tossed the shank into the nearby trash barrel and turned back to Anderson. “Lieutenant Anderson, might I inquire as to your being here at--” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “--five-forty-five in the morning?” Connor took in his disheveled clothes – the same ones from the crime scene last night – and severe dysarthria. “You hadn’t struck me as the stereotypical ‘early bird’.” His attempt at a joke – page thirty-nine, “making light of a situation is a useful ice-breaker” – fell flat. Connor rubbed his hands together.

“You let him go?” Anderson slurred. “Why the _fuck_ …?”

“Unfortunately, Mortez does not pose as much of a threat as you do. Your current state suggests severe inebriation and, therefore, you are prone to--”

“You let him _fucking go_?” Anderson stood tall. Connor squared his shoulders. “Just who the fuck are you?”

Connor blinked. “My name is Connor Dechart. You met me last night at the Phillips’ crime scene at approximately six-twenty that evening. Do you recall?”

Anderson’s eyes flashed. A beat later, he mumbled, “Nope.”

Connor flinched with irritation. “You don’t remember me?”

“Nada.” Anderson sniffed. “Now just fuck right off and leave me alone.”

“Lieutenant Anderson, while I understand your frustration with the events that have just unfolded, I assure you that I cannot simply ‘fuck off’, as you say. Your intoxicated self could cause harm to pedestrians and commuters alike and, therefore, I must insist that I aid you back home.”

Anderson glared at him. Connor looked away.

“You sound like a ther--…th--…like a, uh, thers--…a thes--…”

“A thesaurus?” Connor prompted.

Anderson snapped his fingers. “Yeah. A thesuras.” He puffed his cheeks. “A thersausaus. Theurasus. A ther-- _ah fuck it_. You sound like a _jackass_.”

“Allow me to hail you a taxi, lieutenant Anderson.” Connor walked to the corner of West Adams avenue and Park avenue and waited, patiently, for a taxicab to round the bend. At the current time, there would likely be approximately two to four taxicabs in the immediate area and, of which, only one to two would likely be filled, allowing for a seventy to seventy-five-percent chance of Connor being able to hail an open taxi for the lieutenant.

Behind him, Anderson’s voice echoed, “You know, you’re a _real pansy._ ”

Connor didn’t understand the relevance. He certainly wasn’t “a popular cultivated viola with flowers in rich colors”, leaving him to be the latter definition, or “an effeminate or homosexual man”, to which Connor was not gay, although whether he was effeminate or not was dependent on the individual judging him. It still didn’t fit the current situation, making Connor frown with perplexity. Perhaps he was missing something? Or perhaps there was another definition that he lacked?

He ignored the lieutenant as a taxi rounded the corner and stopped before him. “Good morning.” He leaned down and into the opened passenger door window. Over his shoulder, he heard Anderson shouting once again. “This man requires your services. His address is one-six-two Austin street. He will be paying with card.” Connor ran the address through his head, double-checking its accuracy. Before he had landed in Detroit, Connor made sure to memorize all vital locations that may be of vitality, of which included detective lieutenant Hank Anderson’s address.

“Hold up, buddy.” The driver called. “I ain’t getting out of this car.”

Connor glanced over at the detective. “Then how will you be getting him into the vehicle?”

“I ain’t doing squat. You get him in here.” The man said.

Connor shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Dechart!” Anderson screamed. “ _Dechart_! Get your ass over here and help me up!”

One of Connor’s hands ran through his hair. He tugged at a few strands. “I can’t do that.”

“Just get the guy in here, kid!” The driver demanded.

“Dechart! Help me the _fuck_ up!”

“Dude, just get him in here.”

“Dechart!”

“Come on, man! I ain’t got all day!”

Connor knocked the heel of his palm into his forehead. He whined. His other hand rummaged through his shorts pocket for his fidget. The coin bit into the soft pads of his fingers.

A hand grabbed Connor’s shoulder and Connor jerked. Anderson used him as a temporary crutch as he eased himself into the taxi, grumbling “some fucking help you are” as he went. The taxi peeled away from the curb and Connor staggered backwards.

The street lights were blinding him. The pavement was too hard under his shoes. He brushed off the bugs crawling up his arms. Connor needed a mission. Amanda would give him missions to distract him. To keep him alert and focused. He needed a _mission_. His eyes snagged on the windows of a nearby building and he began counting.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

Connor flipped the coin into the air.

…Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen…

 

 

 

_16 November 2018 – 06:22.57_

_1301 3 rd Avenue_

_Detroit Police Department’s Central Station – Workplace_

Originally, Connor was relieved to discover that the Detroit Police Department’s central station had been a mere point-three miles away from the Grande Hotel. A taxi fare would have added up to roughly seventy US dollars per day – accounting for the time of day, Detroit taxi costs, base costs, commute times, and traffic patterns – and walking was relatively out of the question – he took a strong disliking to city walking for excessive distances as the likelihood of being touched, shoved, stared at, or overstimulated increased significantly – so, upon learning such conveniences, Connor was able to relax.

He stepped up to the street corner and waited patiently for the cars to stop.

A woman rushed up by his left and repeatedly slammed her fist into the crosswalk button. The robotic voice overlapped itself as it struggled to keep up with her repetitive abuse of the button. Connor was already fidgeting enough with his coin in hand and foot tapping hard, and before he realized it, he was talking. “Pedestrian crosswalk buttons are placebos.” he stated. “While they were once functional in many major cities, nowadays, around ninety-seven percent of buttons you see at crosswalks will yield no measurable results.”

The woman’s jaw dropped slightly. “You talking to me?”

“Yes.” He briefly glanced over his shoulder. “Considering you _are_ the only person standing in the immediate vicinity.” She glared into his eyes and Connor looked over her shoulder, down the road. “In some cases, such as in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, the pedestrian crosswalk buttons use the Split-Cycle Offset Optimization Technique, or SCOOT, wherein a real-time adaptive traffic control system allows for the coordination and control of signals in urban network situations. This technique has improved the performance of traffic order by roughly fifteen percent, yet many countries have yet to implement such progressive networking.”

“You high on something?” The woman persistently looked at him.

Connor breathed deeply and glanced down at her lips – a slight shadowed area below the tip of her nose indicated a reconstructed cleft-palate – before saying, “While I take vitamins daily, I can confirm that I am not on any ‘drugs’, as you say. However, I have had a very trying morning and, because of that, I am left feeling stressed and often I compensate by flipping this coin,” He held it up for her to see. “And ‘running my mouth excessively’, as my coworkers in Washington DC say. Why, does it bother you?”

The crosswalk flicked to white and Connor moved forward without second thought. The woman, surprisingly, hadn’t followed but stared instead, leaving Connor perplexed as to her being at the crosswalk in the first place. Had she forgotten her destination? Or perhaps she was ‘sparking conversation’, as stated in his book, page one-hundred-one, where “commonly, when confronted with a situation where patience is required, ‘small talk’ is engaged, allowing for an ease in passage of time and--”

A car skittered through the red light, narrowly missing Connor, the wind stealing his breath and rocking him backwards. Connor watched as it continued through the second red light, causing an opposing minivan to come to a stop in the center of the intersection.

Connor pushed forward, clinging tight to his backpack straps as he leapt up onto the curb and to the safety of the sidewalk.

His head hurt. The morning had been overstimulating, enough so that he nearly pulled out clumps of his hair in the hotel room. While it took him twenty-two minutes and eight seconds, Connor managed to calm his buzzing senses and focus on his coin. A Kennedy half-dollar, issued in nineteen-seventy-five, with a weight of roughly twelve-point-five grams and made with ninety-percent silver and ten-percent copper. Connor breathed in and repeated the facts. Kennedy, half dollar, nineteen-seventy-five – he shoved his hands into his pockets as to not cover his ears in public: that had always disappointed Amanda – made with ninety-percent silver, ten-percent copper, coming into a weight of approximately twelve-point-five grams.

The precinct’s clunky form came into view and Connor rushed for it. Once off the streets, he would be able to think. Once the sounds of humming engines and whizzing tires and the constant stream of chatter, chatter, _chatter_ ended, he would be able to breathe.

Inside the precinct, the air was stale and warm. He shrugged off his winter coat and found peace in the silence. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the room to the front desk. It was a pleasant sound, Connor found, resembling a metronome in rhythm. Amanda had always taught him to breathe with the metronomes, to think with the metronomes, to sync his actions and words to the constant tick and formulate his life around such stability.

“Hello.” The woman at the front desk smiled. “How can I help you today?”

Connor straightened his tie. “My name is Connor Dechart with the FBI. I have received a request to be seen by captain Jeffrey Fowler.” Sounds hushed around him as his heartbeat evened and stress levels steadied. The lights were soft and low, relieving the pounding pressure on his brain.

“All right,” She tapped her computer screen. “Do you have identification?”

Connor rummaged through his pockets: coin, keys, keycard for his room, wallet…

…his wallet was gone.

Connor’s mouth twitched.

“Sir? Do you have identification?”

“I…My wallet…” He rummaged through the same four pockets once again. And again. And again. And again. His fingers sparked with the need for his fidget. He could barely move. Air escaped him. “My wallet…” he repeated. “I…It’s…” Connor jerked his head up. His eyes locked with hers and she grimaced.

“Sir? Are…are you all right?”

“My wallet…” Connor choked. His body stiffened as his mind backtracked through his daily morning schedule.

Five O’clock: Wake

Five-Ten: Begin Exercise Routine

Five-Forty-Five: Return from Exercise Routine…

…No. No, at five-forty-five, Connor had encountered lieutenant Anderson in his drunken stupor. At five-forty-five, Connor became distracted. At five-forty-five, lieutenant Anderson pushed Connor off the railings of his daily schedule. At five-forty-five, he hadn’t though much of it, as lieutenant Anderson’s safety and, therefore, the safety of those around him seemed to take precedent.

He could see his wallet. It was still sitting in the hotel room, where he had left it. Were he on time, Connor would have glanced over the room and would have spotted it. Were he on time, Connor would not have had to rush outside to meet his quota of being approximately six minutes early to the meeting with captain Fowler.

Were it not for lieutenant Hank Anderson, everything would have worked out as planned.

Connor’s jaw ached. His muscles ached. His head ached. Everything ached. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and squeezed. The pull on his scalp alleviated the swollenness in his chest.

The lady at the desk held up a finger. “If captain Fowler granted a request, then you’ll likely be in the system, which will have your photo ID. Give me just a moment.”

But Connor couldn’t stop. His fingers scrabbled through the dark strands for purchase on anything, _anything_ to calm his nerves. “My wallet…it’s on the…on the nightstand. I…My… _Shit_.” His other hand flew up and both clamped over his ears.

Amanda’s voice rang clear through his mind. “Focus on your _mission_.”

Connor jolted upright. His hands dropped to the front desk. Focus on a mission. He needed a mission. His eyes jumped up, over the back wall behind the woman, and he began to count the grooves in the wall decoration. One, two, three, four, five…

“Sir, I have your photo here. Everything check’s out.” The woman said hastily. Her smile quivered.

Connor ignored her. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…

“Sir?”

He drowned her out. His world went deaf. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

Twenty.

There were twenty divots in the wall surrounding the precinct’s logo, each of which rounded the circular-shaped metal plaque equidistantly and with equal proportion. Connor relaxed. He pushed off the countertop, legs like warm jelly and face flushed with discomfiture. “I…I apologize for the inconvenience.” Connor’s voice wobbled as he spoke. “Please excuse my behavior.”

The woman’s expression softened into pity, confusion, and what Connor assumed was second-hand embarrassment. “It’s all right. Are you sure you’re okay? I can call an ambulance if you think you need it?”

“No. I am…coping.” Connor rubbed his hands together. He wanted his coin. He wanted to go _home_. One more stressor would likely topple him over the edge.

The doors behind him whisked open. Perkins, followed by a sluggish lieutenant Anderson, stepped over the threshold. While Perkins demonstrated the basic office-attire outfit, the detective looked horrendous, with big, black bags under his eyes, weighing his face down, aging him decades. His cheeks were hollow and he still wore the same clothing as the previous night.

“Morning, Dechart,” Perkins sighed. He slid his ID card to the woman at the desk. “I see you’re here early. Again. Always the early one.”

Connor breathed deep. “Yes. I decided to arrive six minutes ahead of schedule in case something went…awry.” His gaze danced between the lady behind the desk and Perkins. “And it seems that my judgement to do so was not unsubstantiated.”

“What happened?” Perkins asked.

Before Connor could speak, a large, broad-bodied man walked through the double doors leading to the back of the precinct. “Anderson, glad you could make it on time.” He was captain Jeffrey Fowler, Connor identified, born in Detroit and former classmates with lieutenant Hank Anderson. While Fowler was disciplined in his occupation and easily climbed the ranks to captaincy, Anderson had lagged behind him despite his impressive and rather aggressive head-start launch into lieutenancy at such a young age. “I’m captain Fowler. You gentlemen must be with the FBI?”

Perkins jumped to meet Fowler’s outstretched hand. “Special agent Richard Perkins.”

Connor folded his hands behind his back. “Special agent Connor Dechart. It’s a pleasure to be working with you and the Detroit Police Department.” The formality tasted bitter on his tongue. Amanda had taught him to always say what the other people wanted to hear. It was nonsensical to his ears, but it eased a smirk onto Fowler’s face.

“The pleasure’s mine.” Fowler said. His expression morphed into discontent. “Since this shit’s gotten out of hand, we need all the help we can get.” He nudged his head towards the double doors. “Come with me. Reed’s already in my office. We’ve got some things to discuss.”

They followed Fowler as they weaved between the rows of desks and file cabinets. Anderson trailed far behind Connor, his fingers rubbing small circles into his skull as he cursed under his breath. Connor, however, was lost in thought, his brain scurrying to catalogue as much as possible; the light fixtures – fluorescent, thirty-four watt, t-eight bulbs – the people – all wearing uniforms save for detectives, approximating eighteen officers and two detectives in the immediate vicinity excluding detectives Reed and Anderson – the routes – evidence locker was straight ahead, break room was to the right, holding cell was to the left followed by a sharp right – until Anderson rammed into his back.

“Walk faster, you fucking robot.” Anderson grumbled. “Wait a minute, weren’t you…the taxi guy…?”

“That’s correct, lieutenant.” Connor continued forward at a faster pace. “I hailed you a taxi earlier this morning at five-forty-seven. Unfortunately, in doing so, I was unable to follow my schedule and therefore forgot my wallet in my room. It caused quite a bit of turbulence only moments before your arrival to the precinct.”

Anderson made a strange, incredulous noise. “Oh. Really? Well, I’m oh-so-sorry about that. Next time, I’ll make sure to call my own taxi when I’m shitfaced.”

“Thank you, lieutenant. I appreciate your sense of duty.” Connor’s foot hit the bottom step of the stairs leading to Fowler’s glass-enclosed office. He climbed the staircase and held the door open for the lieutenant.

Anderson shook his head; a sign of disbelief, confusion, bafflement or, in some cases, anger, Connor noted. Judging by the detective’s obvious lack of sleep and likely still drink-addled brain, Connor presumed the gesture was made out of confusion.

The lieutenant asked, “Do you always take everything so literal? You’re like some goddamn Vulcan.”

Connor’s lip twitched. Irritation clawed into the base of his shoulders. “I apologize, lieutenant, but it was _you_ who distracted me from my morning schedule.” His head cocked to the side. “And do you mean to inform me that you were not, in fact, acknowledging your need to be more responsible?”

“No, you dumb shit. I was being _sarcastic_.”

Connor’s eye narrowed at the corner. So it was the ‘sarcastic’ option, not ‘confusion’. Before he could respond, Anderson shoved past him and collapsed into one of the chairs in Fowler’s office. Connor closed the door tight and turned to face the room. Overhead, a screen – set somewhere between seventy and eighty-percent brightness, indicating a possibility of macular degeneration or a degenerative eye disease – flashed pictures of RA-Nine homicides, each of which posed the same twenty-eight stab wounds, gouged eyes, and wooden statuettes. Detective Reed slumped against one of the walls next to the file cabinets, Anderson disappeared into his cushions of the chair, and Perkins stood in-attention before Fowler’s desk.

Connor saw himself to the back of the room as he watched the scene unravel before him.

“This is a shitstorm.” Fowler started. He folded his hands in front of his mouth. “This is a fucking shitstorm. Half of Detroit’s in chaos. The other half is too high to give a fuck. And all the brass does is send you two.”

“We’re special agents.” Connor reminded him. “We are considered exceptional in our fields and, therefore, will likely be of great value to you.”

“You reconstruct crime scenes, right?” Fowler asked. “How long have you been doing that? How can we know you’re right? We need nothing but absolutes right now.”

Connor thought of how to answer for a moment. “Your concern is relevant, captain, but unnecessary. While I have only been an agent for one year and eight months, I have been overlooking crime scenes for roughly fourteen years. My ability to reconstruct these scenes has been perfected, captain Fowler. There is no need for alarm.”

“And you--” Fowler looked to Perkins. “What is it you do? What’s your specialty?”

“I’ve been a field agent for twenty-something years. One of the top homicide agents in the business.” He shrugged nonchalantly, a slippery smirk on his face. “I’m pretty useful to you guys up here, if you ask me.”

Reed snorted. “So what, together you make a whole agent?” Perkins licked the edges of his teeth. “I’m not fucking stupid, it’s obvious that you’re shit at your job,” He pointed to Perkins. “And you’re…you know… _special_!” His hand flew to Connor.

Connor’s chin dipped slightly. “While I was diagnosed with a mild, high-functioning form of Asperger’s syndrome, detective Reed, it has yet to hinder my investigations to a significant degree.”

Reed’s hands fell to his hips. “How do we know you’re not going to have some fucking…meltdown during an investigation? You puked your guts out last night!”

Connor felt a spotlight on him as all eyes fell to him. He shifted uncomfortably in his spot. “Yesterday evening’s situation was a lack of self-control on my part. I hadn’t seen such…brutality before, and it merely caught me off guard. For that, I apologize for my behavior. It was unprofessional and it will not happen again.” He glanced up at Reed. “Regarding your questioning as to whether I will have a ‘meltdown’ as you say, I can assure you that I have been trained socially and cognitively, allowing me to effectively control my emotions more so than many, if not most, autistic individuals. It should not be an issue.”

Anderson cradled his forehead in his palms. Reed barked out a laugh.

Fowler, however, seemed pleased with the explanation. “Well, now that that’s settled, I’m splitting you four into two teams. One will tackle all given leads and evidence, while the other will look into incoming information and witness statements to find how people are finding RA-Nine.”

Connor itched to correct Fowler. He bit his tongue as to not request his independent investigation in front of the other men in the room.

“This is _fucking stupid!_ ” Reed’s raised voice made Connor’s head hurt. He squeezed his hands until the blood drained and nerves tingled. “You’re actually taking these guys in? Seriously? Tell the FBI we need some real help here, not some old rent-a-cop with a shelf life of two days and some fucking _retard_!”

Connor swallowed the urge to snap Reed’s wrists. The man was becoming a hindrance to Connor’s productivity. He would jeopardize the mission.

“Enough, detective Reed!” Fowler rose from his chair. “From the reports I received last night, it was _Dechart_ who reconstructed the scene, not _you_. We _need_ these two, so shut your _god damn_ _mouth_ or hand in your badge!”

Connor bowed his head. “Thank you, captain Fowler.”

“All right.” Fowler sank back into his chair. “All right. We’ll do this. Reed, you’ll be working with witnesses and incoming information. Find out how they’re getting to RA-Nine. Find out where RA-Nine is. Perkins, you’re with Reed.”

Connor’s blood iced over. “Captain--” He worked better alone. He couldn’t work with Anderson. He couldn’t work with _anyone_ , let alone _Anderson_. Anderson, who had ruined his morning schedule. Anderson, who was the epitome of failure. Anderson, who would make Connor fail his _mission_ and disappoint Amanda.

“Anderson, you’ll be investigating all leads and evidence. Try to make sense of what’s coming in and why this is happening. You’ll be with Dechart.”

Anderson leaned back in the chair, arms draped across the back, as he turned and looked up at Connor. “Well I’ll be-fucking-damned. Looks like you’re my partner, kiddo.”

Connor’s heart slammed in his ears. “Spectacular.” he mumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Holy shit. This fic has gotten way more attention than I had initially planned. I know that human!AU fics don't garner as much attention as the other fics do in this fandom, but DAMN, you guys are really great. I'm glad that this fic has stayed under 500 views, though. It feels more close-knit, like I have a small following of friends rather than a big following of fans. You know?
> 
> Additionally, I'd like to address something brought up in the comments of chapter one regarding Connor's autism. While it was rather vague in chapter one, I had someone commenting about where I'm pulling my understanding of autism, and autistic characters, from. I actually have two cousins who are autistic - one is not very autistic, even to the point where you can't really tell he's autistic (even I forget it sometimes), while the other has a form of severe Asperger's. I loosely based this Connor on both of my wonderful cousins. Autism, as you all know, is highly individualistic. Everyone is different. So I wasn't trying to be generic in chapter one. I apologize if it seemed that way. Hopefully, in this chapter, you'll see more individuality to Connor's condition, as I based his habits (i.e. hair pulling, fidgeting, fixating/focusing) on my cousin who has the severe form of Asperger's. I also based his anxiety-reducing fixation on my own methods. Counting and cataloguing when I'm anxious helps to distract me and focus on the here-and-now rather than the what-ifs, and I taught my cousin that technique.
> 
> And yo, believe it or not, but that socialization book exists. Not to the extent that I've written, but I remember reading it with my cousin one time and thinking, "damn, this is really specific and feels almost robotic...why would someone write this?" But I guess, if it helps, then it helps. Everyone's different.
> 
> Anyway, thank you all for reading this. Truly. I never expect it to get so much praise. And to hear that you all like my writing style makes breathing so much easier. I feel like I can relax and write/post chapters without being concerned over "what if they think my writing is ass" or "what if they hate how it sounds". So thanks much!
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	3. Partners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_16 November 2018 – 06:55.09_

_1301 3 rd Avenue_

_Detroit Police Department’s Central Station – Workplace_

Anderson glided from the armchair and towards the office door with a sporadic burst of grace, mumbling “let’s go” to Connor as he swept past him. He shouldered the glass door open and disappeared down the steps. Connor heard Fowler scowl something under his breath but ignored it as he bowed his head and turned after the detective. His long legs struggled to keep in stride with Anderson’s even longer ones.

“Lieutenant,” Connor began. “Judging by your levels of perspiration and respiration, you will likely run out of breath in approximately thirty seconds. I recommend slowing your pace if you plan to travel a long distance.” The officers in the precinct watched as they cleared the floor in seconds.

The lieutenant abruptly stopped and cut right, dropping into a nearby swivel chair. Connor noted the desk – gold plaque with the name ‘ANDERSON’ in Arial font, size seventy to seventy-two, desktop cluttered with forty-percent personal items, thirty-percent food stuffs, ten-percent paperwork, ten-percent trash, and ten-percent miscellaneous memorabilia – as he stood in attention, hands behind his back and feet flat.

His eyes fell to Anderson, who leaned back in his hair, head lolling off the back as he breathed heavy and sighed. Connor watched as the man deflated visibly, taking into account the alcoholic stench masked by cologne, the wild, unshapen grey hair, the wrinkles that creased his skin, his exhaustion, his irritation that pulled at the corners of his eyes--

“What’re you looking at?” Anderson slurred. “Me? Because I don’t like being looked at.” The man’s head rose and he eyed Connor carefully.

Connor stared. “My apologies, lieutenant. I was simply gathering information about you that may be useful to the progress of the investigation.”

“What the fuck?” The detective sat upright. “What kind of fucking answer is that? Why the fuck would you need to do that?”

Connor said, curtly, “Now that we are partners, I plan to utilize all means necessary to progress the case. As such, a stable relationship with you is recommended, as that will greatly increase productivity and decrease miscommunication about evidence between us.” He reached into his pocket for his coin. His nerves continued to buzz despite the calm air of the precinct. Connor deduced it was likely the remaining anxiety shaking from his system after the repertoire of unfortunate events that unfolded throughout the morning. “Do you have any issues with my approach?”

The lieutenant chewed on the inside of his lips. Connor waited, patiently and unblinking, as Anderson slowly hunched into himself. He finally said, “Do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care.”

Connor nodded. “Thank you for your cooperation.” He looked over at the empty desk next to the lieutenant’s. “I presume this is my workplace?”

“You presumed right…” Anderson muttered.

Connor rounded the desk and dipped into the chair, instantly feeling sore. A twinge peeled up his back at the discomfort the rolling chair gave – mesh back, plastic case, black finish, likely four to eight-years-old, ranging between fifteen to thirty US dollars – and he pursed his lips. The desk was in similar disarray, dusty from months of neglect and caving in towards the center. Connor’s fingertips padded the underside of the desk and he noted its absence of a support beam stretching from the center cavity to the furthermost backing. It seemed that not only had the officers lacked structural integrity, but the furniture had as well.

He pulled open the desks’ drawers. A few screws rolled forward to meet him and he frowned. “Lieutenant,” Connor leaned over and picked one up. “Where, exactly, do these go? Is this desk structurally sound? If not, one could become injured which, in turn, would likely end up as a lawsuit against the precinct.”

“Not my problem.” Anderson said. He faced his computer, squinting as he inched closer.

“Lieutenant.” Connor said again. Anderson rolled his eyes as he looked over at him. “Might I suggest a pair of reading glasses. It is not uncommon for someone of your age to be requiring sight aids. In fact, it is actually _uncommon_ for you to have twenty-twenty vision above the age of forty.”

Anderson’s mouth curved into a sour smile. “Well that’s great. Not everyone’s perfect like you, kiddo. Sorry, I don’t have twenty-twenty vision and I don’t have the money to pay for it.”

Connor raised his eyebrows. “I do not have twenty-twenty vision. I require glasses, but in the workplace, I prefer contact lenses, as glasses may hinder the ability to see in some weather conditions and may affect my ability to chase suspects if needed.”

The lieutenant remained slack-jawed as he hissed, “Do I look like I care?” He turned back to his terminal and continued to scroll slowly though what Connor presumed to be case files.

Connor huffed softly. Amanda would want him to not only participate in the investigation, but to accrue all possible relationships that would aid in said investigation. While it was tempting to ignore the lieutenant as well as the remainder of the precinct, Connor was instructed to cooperate and work with the officers as one living, breathing unit. The way she taught him made it seem simple but, as Connor thought about it, he realized more people in the precinct found his presence a burden.

Perkins was the only one who tolerated him and, even then, it was rare that the words coming from his mouth weren’t either sarcastic or bitter with envy or arrogance.

Connor turned towards Anderson, hesitating as he calculated his words carefully. Whatever he was going to say had to be beneficial to the investigation, not counterproductive. He had to remember that. “Lieutenant, if you would not mind, I would like to know what information you have acquired on RA-Nine and red ice. While I read the case files on the flight over, I could have…missed something--” The prospect made him cringe inwardly. “--and, therefore, I would like to review.”

“Terminal’s at the desk.” Anderson pointed to the clunky computer without looking at Connor. “Knock yourself out.”

Connor frowned. Not only had he undermined his own intelligence for the sake of a possible positive relationship with the detective, but the detective had also failed to understand his sacrifice and merely tossed him aside like a ragdoll. “No, lieutenant. I would like to know what _you_ , personally, have found.” Connor pushed his thumbnails into his fingertips as he spoke.

Anderson whipped around, eyes bulging and face reddening. “I said, the fucking terminal’s at your desk. Like six fucking inches away. Look at what I wrote in the reports.”

Connor rolled his shoulders back. He blinked, breathed, and flexed his aching jaw. He watched Anderson overheat with anger from his periphery, seeing the man punch his keyboard with two straight fingers, scowling when he mashed the backspace key and whacking the space bar every few keys with a fat thumb. The man, Connor found, was crude and harsh. He was aggressive, noncompliant, and difficult and, while Connor himself enjoyed an occasional round of competitivity to show off his skills, Anderson seemed to want to fight, bicker, and, as Perkins often said, “Bitch like a well-fed princess.”

Amanda had told him routinely, “drastic times call for drastic measures”, and while Connor had no intentions of attempting to weave his and Anderson’s relationship into a friendship, as communication was not his forte nor did it need to be, he discovered the more and more Anderson hated him, the further and further away the evidence seemed. He was becoming distracted. He was becoming a nuisance to himself. He was becoming a disappointment to Amanda.

He needed to rectify the relationship for the sake of the mission.

Now.

“Do you like music?” Connor asked. His eyes were glued to his computer screen as he scrolled through the files, remembering every one of them from the flight over, when he continued stiffly, “I like music. It’s full of…” Connor searched for a suitable word, one that the average person could relate to. “… _energy_.” Connor nodded to himself. Energy, a word often used by rather uncultured people to propagate the idea of strength or vitality in inanimate objects or supernatural occurrences. Music had no energy, Connor knew. Sound waves that came from music, specific to decibels and hertz, had a form of energy. But music itself had no energy.

“You listen to music?” The lieutenant raised his hands, his fingers circling his ears. “Doesn’t that, you know, fuck you up?”

Connor, admittedly, was pleasantly surprised at Anderson’s knowledge of overstimulating elements. Though whether it was from actual understanding due to prior experience or from generalized stereotypes derived from television and movies, Connor couldn’t figure out. He said, simply, “If the volume is low and the music itself is modest, then I find I am able to enjoy it. It is rare that music causes overstimulation for me.” He shrugged loosely. “However, every condition is specific and unique.” He looked up at Anderson, staring him in the eyes but remembering to blink. “What music do you listen to?”

“Nothing that you’d like.” The lieutenant mumbled.

Connor said, “I find that statement to be rather uninformed, lieutenant. I, myself, enjoy many different styles of music. However, my personal favorite is Uriah Heep.”

“You listen to _Uriah?_ ”

Connor nodded. “Yes. My brother familiarized me with the band when I was six-years-old, and I have been listening to it since. Admittedly, there are only a few songs that I can tolerate, though. What about you? What music do you listen to?”

The lieutenant bristled. He rocked slightly in his chair before saying, “Not Uriah…”

“Well, would you care to one day introduce me to your favorite band?”

“Nope.” Anderson popped his cheeks.

Connor felt a stitch of disappointment sow into his mind. He had thought himself to be close to acquiring a decent relationship for the sake of the investigation, but it proved increasingly difficult. The average American listened to approximately two million songs in their lifetime, with an average of four hours per day or one-hundred-twenty-thousand hours in seventy-nine years of life. Merely knowing that the lieutenant listened to music and not to Uriah Heep was useless to Connor.

 He continued on, “You have a dog, correct?”

“How the fuck--?”

Connor nudged his chin down and raised his eyebrow. “There is dog hair on the back of your chair and on your clothing as well.” He calculated once again before saying, “I like dogs. What is your dog’s name?”

“I doubt you’re capable of _liking_ much, buddy. You seem sort of stiff to me.” Anderson chuckled. He shook his head as Connor lowered his, the pain of second dead lead curling around his heart and squeezing. However, the lieutenant turned to him briefly and said, “Sumo. I call him Sumo.”

Connor opened his mouth to ask another question when Anderson snapped, “You going to keep interrogating me? Really?”

“Lieutenant…” Connor felt his chest sink. “That was…that _was_ my intention, but merely for the sake of the investigation.”

“What?”

“I planned to gather as much information about you as possible to increase workplace productivity and decrease the chances of miscommunication due to ill will. I _did_ mention this earlier.” Anderson’s stare looked distant. Connor rerouted his technicalities into simpler terms. “However, I thought that, perhaps, we would find a common ground and then we could work from there…”

“So you want to frolic into the sunset or something?” Anderson leaned back in his chair.

Connor shook his head. “No. I don’t understand how that activity in particular would optimize our chances of cooperation. However, if this is something that you enjoy, I will not judge and may be able to fit it into my schedule. How often do you do this activity?”

Anderson’s face flattened. His eyes went cold and blank. “Jesus fuck, you’re not kidding.”

“I am not.” Connor frowned.

“You actually think I fucking skip into sunsets after work or something?”

“I do not judge based on appearances nor do I assert generalizations upon individuals. I am one-hundred-percent neutral when in accordance to the case. Also, I can see the benefits of a light activity whilst being in a calming environment aiding in destressing after a relatively trying day at the precinct, so it’s not too unfounded to be depicted as strange. I would find it’s relaxation capabilities to be the same level as light yoga.”

“This is fucking insane.” The man’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. He continued to pound on his keyboard.

Connor shrunk. He rose from his chair and rounded to the side of Anderson’s desk, ignoring the lieutenant’s dark side-eyed glare. “Lieutenant, I understand that my presence may be of inconvenience to you--”

“That’s an understatement…”

“--and I understand that you likely have personal ties to either my presence or this investigation.” Anderson’s eye flicked. “But, I would like to remind you that both special agent Perkins and I were hand-picked by both the FBI and the Detroit Police Department’s leaders to investigate these crimes and solve these murders. Therefore, I would like you to please show more respect and professionalism when in company of the mission.”

Anderson folded further into himself. His fingers stalled above the keyboard.

Connor sighed and leaned over. He carefully placed one hand on the back of his chair and the other flat on his desk. As his book said, on page twenty-four, “Intimacy can often cause once stressful situations to relax, as human touch and kindness, when paired together, is often a conductor for positive emotions. However, be wary about distance and comfortability when utilizing said intimacy, as, in some cases, the closeness will not procure any positivity but instead be counterproductive.”

“Lieutenant,” Connor lowered his voice but softened his tone. “Might I suggest you remove yourself from this case. It is clearly distressing to you and for your own safety and for the sake of the investigation, your subtraction to our team will likely benefit us, as your high risk of negligence is causing--”

Anderson leapt from his seat. He reached forward, tangling his fingers in Connor’s lapels. Connor jerked forward, the world spinning. Anderson tossed him up against the nearby wall. Connor’s feet dangled, tip toes skirting the carpeted floor.

“Don’t you fucking talk about me like you know me.” The detective snarled. His breath made Connor’s eyes involuntarily water, the potent stench of alcohol rolling off his tongue. “Don’t fucking do that. Don’t you _dare_. We aren’t fucking friends. We aren’t fucking partners. We aren’t fucking _anything_. I don’t give a _shit_ about what you do or what happens to you. You’re fucking _nothing_ to me, you hear me?” His grip tightened. Connor held his passive face. “I’m going to crack this case without your ugly-fucking-mug getting in my way. Tell my why I shouldn’t fucking drop you right now?”

Connor contemplated his options. While incapacitating the lieutenant would be simple, it would likely decrease the public’s opinion, as all eyes in the precinct were trained on them. However, leaving the lieutenant to his ramblings not only debased the status of the FBI but also increased tension in the workplace. Connor carefully raised his hands above his head. “Lieutenant. Doing so would result in immediate disciplinary action, as I am unarmed and not resisting.” Anderson’s eyes sparked. His face shook with anger. “However,” Connor remained calm. “I can also infer that, if you were to ‘drop’ me, as you say, the cost of damages to the precinct and to your own body would be worth a small fortune, as I do not plan to simply _allow_ you to assault me. That is against my protocol. Please choose your next actions wisely.”

Anderson stared deep into Connor’s eyes. Connor watched them bounce back and forth haphazardly, chasing imaginary lines, and Connor wondered briefly of what the lieutenant was thinking. Was he assessing his possibilities? Was he doubting Connor’s warning? Was he confused? Or, perhaps it were far less complex, and Connor merely had something in his eyes. No, the jumping between his hard stare made Connor believe the detective was assessing. He, himself, was thinking about what Connor could be thinking.

The grasp on Connor’s jacket loosened and Connor hit the floor softly. The lieutenant growled and glared down at Connor, turning away with a huff of stale air. Connor straightened his tie. His hands shook.

After the adrenaline ebbed away, Connor was left feeling sticky and sick. Being touched, or _nearly_ touched, made a claw dig into his hindbrain, scrambling whatever sense he had as all urges demanded he run home, to his apartment, and decompress. He needed to get away. He felt the static of another overstimulation attack begin to fuzz the edges of his mind, flurries of black and white greying out the colors around him.

Connor locked his legs to refrain from moving on his own as he pulled out his coin and began fidgeting.

An officer from the Phillips’ apartment investigation neared Anderson slowly, as if the detective were a wild animal prepared to pounce. “Hank,” he said. “We’ve got something. A body. Fowler says he wants you two on it, since Gavin and Richard are at another possible scene.”

Anderson reached near Connor – he was too close and Connor struggled to breathe right – and plucked his winter coat off the back of the chair. He stomped after the officer, leaving Connor in silence as a few straying gazes fell to him, watching him like a creature in a zoo on display. Slowly, Connor peeled away from the wall and tailed after them.

 

 

 

_16 November 2018 – 08:07.17_

_6413 Pines Street_

_Ortiz’s House – Crime Scene No.2_

The lieutenant’s car jerked to a stop at the curb in front of the victim’s house. The sky was grey and churning cold, threatening to drop snow. Connor pressed his forehead against the glass of the passenger’s door, eyeing the clouds, when Anderson said, “Stay here.” The man reached for the door handle.

“I can’t do that.” Connor leaned forward to face the lieutenant. “I am a federal agent, not a rookie police officer. I will accompany you on this investigation, whether you approve of it or not.”

Anderson’s face dropped. Connor’s stomach twisted.

“You don’t talk. You don’t move. Hell, you don’t even fucking breathe. Just sit still. Don’t touch anything. Don’t _do_ anything. _I’ll_ handle this. Capiche?”

“If you are asking for my understanding of your guidelines, then I must say that I decline to conform to your rules. They not only hinder my investigation, but will hinder the overall mission’s rate of success as well. Therefore, I will follow, investigate, and announce as I see fit.”

“No you won’t.” Anderson jabbed a finger at Connor.

“I will.” Connor said. He got out of the car before Anderson even touched his handle. As soon as his feet hit the concrete road, Connor flinched, a raindrop pelting his cheek. He wiped it away and turned to the detective as the man crawled out of his old car.

“What the fuck you looking at me for? It’s raining. So what?” Anderson began to shuffle towards the yellow police tape.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, lieutenant, but the average precipitation for Detroit in November is approximately one-point-four inches. However, it has continuously rained for over one-hundred-sixty-eight hours, therefore placing the annual November average above one-point-four inches. This is strange weather, is it not?” Connor asked. He held his hand out as two more drops pricked his middle finger and thumb. He felt his jacket chill as the raindrops quickly thickened into a drizzle.

“You’re mistaken.” Anderson walked away. Connor paused. Where was he mistaken? Had his calculations been off? Perhaps the average he calculated were from average snowfalls over average precipitation? Or perhaps--

Near the police line, crowded by a dozen reporters, Anderson called, “Let’s go, Dechart!” He turned to a reporter and mumbled, “I said no comment, lady. That means no comment, no talky-talky, get out of here.”

The building itself was rundown and depressing, the shell of a once lovely single-story home. Connor noted the different types of wood that made up the porch, the frames, and the boards crossed over the front window – cedar, elm, pine, and spruce, all of which were well known for their strength and pliability – as he neared the front door.

Before walking in, Connor gagged. The smell was near unbearable; a rotting stink, one of sulfur and maggots and congealed blood and decay that made Connor’s arm fly to his stomach and forced him to breathe heavily through his mouth. Anderson turned over his shoulder and wiggled his brows. “Don’t upchuck on this crime scene, kid.”

Connor’s face burned as the police officers around them chuckled. “I have no intentions in doing so.” he answered stiffly. He straightened out slowly and pushed forward.

Inside, Connor felt the blood drain from his face. Darkened and damp, the house was falling apart from the inside-out. Bugs wormed across the walls and ceilings and the floors shrieked from corrosion. Connor toed carefully, stepping with precision as every board he crossed felt as if it would give under his weight. Through the dust, Connor could make out the thick lines of a corpse, slumped against the wall, the body bloated and icy as it began the slow journey of decomposition.

“Fuck that’s gross…” Anderson rubbed his chin. “How long’s he been dead?”

“I would approximate between fifteen to twenty days.” Connor announced. He inched forward, ignoring the cross glances the officer and Anderson gave each other.

After a moment of hesitation, the hefty first responder said, “Kid’s right. ME says nineteen days.” They wandered closer to the corpse and Connor knelt down. “Name’s Carlos Ortiz. The landlord said he wasn’t paying his dues so he went to check up on him. He found him like this. The smell was worse before we popped off some of these boards and opened up the windows. Can’t imagine what the landlord got a whiff of.”

Connor scanned Ortiz’s body, taking in the aggressive wounds – twenty-eight stabs to the abdominopelvic and thoracic cavities, the same modus operandi of the previous RA-Nine cases save for the Phillips’ apartment – and the black, gooey sockets of the man’s eyes. The victim’s head was crunched close to his chest, angled down, showing off rotting teeth and blackened gums. Connor noted a dark sprawling of bruises across Ortiz’s lower left arm and wrist.

While Connor found the crime scene equally as disturbing as the others, Ortiz’s death, like the ones he read in the case files, was digestible. Emma Phillips’ body chipped something away inside of him, making Connor hurt like he hadn’t before. But with Ortiz, Connor could think. He was a victim. There was an unsub. Emma was different. She was a child. Ortiz was a grown man, one who had fell victim to his own faults. There was no innocence to him. He was a victim. There was an unsub. Ortiz was just a body now.

Connor would not become compromised again.

The RA-Nine statuette was poorly carved and lacked much of the detail seen in many other statues, signifying an individual carves their own statuette, unlike the original theory of mass-produced statues completed by one person. The basic outline was there and distinguished and Connor dipped lower to see the underside of the statuette that read the ‘R’ and the ‘A’ followed by a large, slightly morphed number nine.

“There’s a knife over here.” The officer said behind Connor. Connor turned to look where he pointed for Anderson. “And there’s signs of a struggle in the kitchen. Baseball bat’s on the floor. Other than that, we’ve got nothing.” The large man wiggled his moustache. “We think Ortiz was jumped. Someone came in through the back door, ran to the kitchen, got a knife, and then stabbed him. Ortiz probably tried to defend himself with the bat but couldn’t.”

Connor popped to his feet and to the room leading to the kitchen. Indeed, a knife laid on the floor, coated in crusted blood. He stepped over it and wandered into the kitchen. A chair sat on its side and a magazine was sprawled out on the floor. Behind the kitchen table, near the counter, was a baseball bat.

With a quick glance backwards, Connor noted the bed was tilted approximately seven degrees from its previous position where it had left indentations in the wood. The kitchen chair, of course, was upturned, but at an angle that suggested the unsub and the victim rounded the dining room table before heading into the living room. He looked forward again, at the kitchen, and glossed over the furniture.

The scene pieced itself together with ease. It was relatively unnerving to realize the Detroit police failed to compute such a simple crime.

“You got it?” Anderson asked impatiently.

Connor said nothing. He finished reconstructing the remaining parts of the scene.

“Because if you got nothing, then we’re leaving. I haven’t had breakfast yet and I’m starving.”

Anderson moved to walk away. He pushed past Connor, dodging another officer as he went, before Connor called out. “It’s simple.”

The lieutenant, as well as the surrounding officers and CSIs, turned to him. Connor said, “Ortiz had a guest over, likely someone he knew who was dealing to him, judging by the cocaine on his upper lip as well as on the desk across from his corpse.” Anderson looked sideways, his eyes lightening when he spotted the white powder on the desktop, something he seemed to have overlooked. Connor continued, “The guest was likely a new member of RA-Nine. They decided to kill Ortiz for initiation into the cult by following him into the kitchen with the baseball bat. Remember, RA-Nine initiations must be done to someone of close importance to the unsubs. Ortiz, I believe, would likely be a father or brother figure to this unsub.

“They reached the kitchen and the unsub attacked the victim with the baseball bat. Ortiz reached for a knife but it was knocked from his grasp, judging by the bruising on Ortiz’ forearms. The unsub threw the bat and instead picked up the knife. He stabbed Ortiz once to incapacitate him, as suggested by the blood spatter in the kitchen and the opening to the living room, and as Ortiz stumbled, he moved his bed approximately six to ten degrees to the right. The unsub followed Ortiz and continued to stab him, allowing him to follow through with the ritual.”

Anderson clapped his hands together. “Well that’s nice. But we’ve got one body, no leads, and no suspect. We’re leaving here empty handed. Now can we go get breakfast or what?”

Connor’s gaze darted across the kitchen and down the hall. There were scuff marks across the leftmost wall and a long, white shadow cast on the floor where dust settled around a large object. Connor’s head rolled back and he looked up, up to where the attic hatch was propped slightly and darkness seeped through the cracks.

“Lieutenant, please come here a moment.” Connor called softly.

Anderson slumped forward. “What?”

“Are there footprints outside in the back?” Connor asked, still looking up.

Anderson stared at his feet, hands on his hips. “Yeah, one set of tracks. They’re fresh, though. I think they’re Chris’. Maybe Chen’s. Who knows? I guess the bad guy’s prints washed away with all this rain and shit.”

“The dirt would have retained a trace, lieutenant.” Connor’s eyes narrowed as he looked sideways at the gruff man. “I believe our unsub has not yet left the vicinity.”

Anderson hesitantly followed Connor’s gaze and looked up. He scowled and turned around, gesturing to someone behind Connor as Connor rounded back to the kitchen to grab a chair. He planted it firmly on the floor before climbing up and pushing on the attic entrance. The detective snagged the hem of Connor’s jacket. “The fuck you doing?” he whisper-screamed. “What if he fucking jumps you? What if he’s got a gun or something?”

“Lieutenant, if the unsub had a gun, he would have likely shot Ortiz to incapacitate him instead of struggling with the man. I doubt that is the case. And to ease your conscience, I have been training in combat for over a decade. Please await my instructions.” Connor popped the attic door back, planting his hands on either side of the entrance, and lifted himself up gracefully. He knelt low, barely able to see through the dust and darkness of the windowless space.

To his far left, wood crunched. Connor could hear breathing, ragged and rabid. He peered down to the ground floor where Anderson watched with wide eyes and nodded once. Anderson cursed softly and disappeared, likely calling for backup, Connor presumed.

Connor found the situation to be optimistic: without any windows and only one exit, the unsub would be caught without a doubt. Of course, the penalties for Connor being maimed or killed in an attic would be most disappointing to Amanda, but as Connor snuck forward, steady to his center of gravity and bracing himself for a fight, he remembered Amanda’s training, her words, her reminding him to complete his mission at all costs. Connor swallowed the fear that teethed on his gut and exhaled calculated resolve.

His body moved on its own, eyes snagging on anything and everything as he watched carefully. Connor peeled a hanging sheet away, a blank mannequin greeting him and making him jump. Connor relaxed his muscles and tightened his core as he rounded another plank of wood.

A body rammed into Connor and Connor reeled back hard. He slammed into the wall as the unsub scurried for the attic entrance. Connor lunged forward, arms wrapped tight around the man – young, mid-to-late-twenties, black, with dark hair and strong shoulders – and thrashed.

“Lieutenant!” Connor struggled breathlessly. “I’ve got him!”

The man rammed his elbow up and back. Connor blocked it with an open palm. A second elbow swung for his jaw. Connor ducked, rolled to dodge a kick, and snagged the unsub’s ankle as he dashed for the entrance once again. The man tumbled to his chest. Connor leapt forward, clambering on top of the man, straddling his lower back. He hooked one arm around the unsub’s neck as his free hand flew to grab and wrench back one of the unsub’s wrists. The unsub cried out and Connor pulled harder.

The unsub shrieked. An officer poked his head into the attic, whitened like a ghost, and dipped out. He was replaced by Anderson, who whistled. “Damn, kid. You got him?”

Connor nodded, chest heavy and breaths ragged. He coughed dust. “I’ve got him.” He imagined how off-putting he must appear to the lieutenant with strewn hair and disheveled clothes. However, Anderson nodded slowly, a genuine smirk creeping up onto his face.

“Damn straight you did. _Shit_ , kid. Nice catch _._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Yo, guys. There are so many people reading this. Like, okay, not that much, but there's still a lot. It's making me nervous haha.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Truly. I really, REALLY appreciate it. You guys don't understand what it means to me. It feels so good to be noticed haha.
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	4. The Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_16 November 2018 – 19:37.18_

_1301 3 rd Avenue_

_Detroit Police Department’s Central Station – Workplace_

The suspect’s name was Cornelius Smith Jr, born and raised in downtown Detroit, outside of Novi, Michigan. He was six foot tall and two-hundred-seventy pounds of corded muscles and raw strength. Connor, at first, was shocked that he had managed to wrangle the man so easily as he could have subdued Connor with ease. It made Connor believe that he _wanted_ to get caught.

As Smith sat across from lieutenant Anderson, hands squeezed tight and jaw locked, Connor studied him. He studied the man’s lax, shell-shocked face before his gaze snapped to his eyes – Amanda had once said, “Everything is in the eyes Connor, which is why you must guard your eyes at all costs.” – and he frowned.

The man was breathing steady – even, between fifteen to twenty breaths per minute, an average for an adult male at rest – and his posture was wracked with unease but headstrong; he showed little vulnerabilities that Anderson could pick at. Smith oozed a calm, relatively unconflicted aura. Connor found it disturbing.

In his past studies of interrogation, Connor had found many perpetrators were equally as manipulative and aggressive as wild dogs. They would fight for their freedom and sink their teeth into those that condemned them as killers. Hostility was one of the few markers Connor could count on in interrogations. Hostility towards the victims. Hostility towards the accusations. Hostility towards themselves. All perpetrators were hostile, in one form or another.

Smith was not hostile. It bothered Connor to the bone. He pulled his coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air.

Reed had been the first to interrogate Smith. He was, of course, unsuccessful, as Connor pried away the unnecessary fluff in the detective’s tactics and found nothing but boiling anger in his methodology of interrogation. Anderson, however, was too soft. He would raise his voice and slam the table but not in earnest. Smith could sense that. As the man watched the lieutenant with a glazed over gaze, he likely thought Anderson’s interrogation to be equally as boring as watching paint dry.

Amanda had taught him the rules of interrogation. She had taught him to undo everything he had learned, to unravel the social niceties and play dirty. “Interrogation,” she had said, “is not a gentleman’s game. Men think it is, because men think they are superior to women in every aspect except for around the domestic house. Men think that interrogating a suspect is a gentleman’s game but it’s not. Men play by the cookie-cutter rules, albeit dirtily and aggressively. But women…women coax men to speak. Women can get anything they want from a man. Interrogation is not a gentlemen’s game, Connor. It is a woman’s hunting ground. It is a woman’s place to thrive and take what she will from the man before her. Interrogation is a _woman’s_ game.”

 Connor shifted his stance, watching Anderson more than the perpetrator himself. While Smith remained still, Anderson squirmed, his hands folded over his stomach and chin touching his chest as he said, “I got all day, buddy. So either you confess or we’re going to be sitting here for a long, long time…”

A lie. Connor noted the dark, bruise-like skin under the lieutenant’s eyes, the shakiness in his hands, the grey pallor to his dehydrated skin – the man was sleep deprived, running on approximately four to six hours of rest over the past forty-eight hours – and sighed softly. Anderson would likely not last another half an hour before his mental faculties gave out beneath his feet and he began rambling nonsensically.

The lieutenant, nor Reed or Perkins, had witnessed Amanda’s interrogation techniques firsthand. The garden had once been Connor’s place of refuge as Amanda taught him how to analyze, interpret, reconstruct, deconstruct, and socialize. She had taught him to fight with his mind as well as his fists. The garden was where he had once gone to learn, where his curiosity bloomed as bright as the roses around them.

That night, however, Amanda had shown him the thorns and poisons in the flowers as she stripped him of his dignity, his bravery, and his strengths, laying bare his greatest vulnerabilities.

Connor had cracked within eight minutes, despite his training.

He doubted Smith would last any longer than two.

“Let me try.” Connor said suddenly. Perkins and Reed whipped around. He repeated, “I could try interrogating the suspect.”

“ _You_?” Reed chortled.

Connor didn’t blink. Reed squirmed whenever Connor didn’t blink. “Yes. Me.”

Perkins shrugged. “Well, what’s the worst that could happen…?”

Reed scoffed, “fucking unbelievable” as he tightened his arms across his chest like a chain. “This is fucking unreal.” Perkin’s knuckles rasped on the glass and Anderson turned around, eyebrows up and breathing labored. He looked to be on the brink of collapse.

Connor nodded to Perkins and headed for the door. “I’ll only be a few moments. Please stand by and await my instructions.”

In reality, Connor had only observed Amanda’s interrogation techniques. Despite his best attempts to remain level-headed and calm, Amanda had snapped him like a toothpick and he splintered, his mind fracturing and body crumbling under the pressure of her strategy. He could recall her basic methodology but no more.

Anderson stumbled out of the interrogation room and stopped in front of Connor.

“They’re sending you in?”

“Correct.” Connor said.

Anderson tilted his head back. “I’ve seen you take down a guy twice your size, I’ve heard you ramble on for hours and hours about useless shit. And now I’m going to see you break a hardass like this?” He nodded slowly. “If you can, you bet your ass I’d be impressed. You’re like a triple threat to the cop world, huh?”

Connor’s eyes drifted leftwards. “Lieutenant…I can assure you that I am not a threat to anyone at the moment…” Anderson hummed. “And I can promise you that I will try my best to get the suspect to confess. However, interrogation is not an exact science. It requires more psychology over, say, physics, which was utilized to subdue Smith--”

“Connor.”

Connor’s mouth snapped shut. His brain screamed a lack of professionalism in Anderson’s use of a first name. His heart squeezed tight and fluttered away, though.

Anderson continued, “Take him the fuck down.” He clapped Connor on the arm. Connor pried himself away but nodded regardless as Anderson shuffled into the viewing room. The door slammed shut and Connor suddenly felt claustrophobic.

Amanda’s interrogation was perfected over decades of careful, analytical practice, precise and firm. Connor, at best, was a novice. He knew he was not only relatively unskilled in such an area, but he also lacked the psychosocial academics that Amanda had garnered through a PhD and participation in her own techniques.

Connor was walking in blind.

He was going to make a fool out of himself. He could hear Amanda’s words, see her disappointment. He would fail his mission. Connor reached for the handle but jerked away, the knob too hot and too cold. His senses reeled to keep up. He was failing. Already a failure.

“Connor.”

Anderson’s head poked out of the viewing room door. Connor gasped up at him as the detective said, “What are you waiting for, kid? Hop to it.”

Connor shuddered.

Anderson’s head bowed slightly. “Get in there and pull this prick apart, you hear me?”

A warm, hot heat burned in Connor’s stomach. Pride. Confidence. Determination. It bubbled up inside him, coiling in his veins and thrumming through his heart. He nodded curtly and Anderson mirrored the gesture before he slipped back into the viewing room.

Connor reached out once again. The door handle burned.

Inside, the walls were bare and white and the desk – metal, dark grey, stainless, approximately sixty inches wide by thirty-one inches tall – sat in the center of the enclosed room. Connor felt caged. He swallowed it down and moved forward.

He flipped open the case file, deliberately with flamboyance, angling the folder enough for Smith to see but not too much to appear suspicious. The crime scene splayed out before him in bright colored photos, one after the other, and Connor eyed the man discretely.

Smith’s jaw tightened. His shoulders slouched roughly one to three degrees.

Connor dragged the file around to his side of the table, fingers spread like a spider’s legs, as he eased himself into the chair. He copied Amanda’s face – sharp lines, dark features, narrowed eyes that pierced like ice picks – and stared ahead. The file followed him as he twisted it around. He dropped his hand flat over the first picture before he slid it out and in front of Smith.

“Date: November sixteenth, twenty-eighteen.” Connor stated. He pulled out another picture, setting it down before Smith. “Victims: one, Ortiz, Carlos. Perpetrators: Smith, Cornelius Jr.” Smith flinched. “Decree: first-degree murder.” As he set the last photo in front of Smith, watching the man’s eyes skitter between the pictures, Connor straightened. He loomed over the table like a shadow. “What do you have to say for yourself?” His words sounded like Amanda’s. He sounded like Amanda.

Smith exhaled through his nose.

Connor continued according to plan. “I am not your friend, but I don’t have to be your enemy.” He tweaked the words as he went, Amanda’s voice still ringing through his head. “I am here to do what you need me to do. I will condemn you if you want. I will break you if you want. I will free you if you want.”

Smith’s finger twitched.

Connor continued. “I am a neutral party, here to bend at your will. But you must give me what I want for me to give you what you want.” He leaned forward, head tilting. “What is it that you want, Cornelius?”

A shiver wracked up Smith’s spine.

Connor continued. “What do you desire? Life with parole? Fifty without parole? A last meal? A plea bargain?”

Smith’s irises blew wide.

Connor continued. “Give me what I want. I will give you what you want.”

Smith choked.

Connor nearly did as well. “Talk to me.”

“I--” Smith squeezed his fists. His veins popped around the cuffs on his wrists. “I…I don’t want to die.”

Connor felt an pain in his chest. He pushed forward. “Then I will save you.” He sounded like Amanda.

“I don’t want to die,” Smith repeated. He looked at Connor with wild eyes. “But they’ll kill me. They will. They will.”

“RA-Nine?” Connor asked.

Smith stared Connor in the eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

“Then let me save you.” Connor was practically pleading. He sounded like Amanda. It burned his throat. He could feel the man’s emotions dip and twist, churning inside as Smith struggled to speak. Connor said, “Let. Me. Save. You. Just talk to me.”

“I--” Smith’s head dropped. “They’ll kill me.”

Connor was so close. He felt his air leave him with impatient anticipation. “Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Tell. Me.”

“I can’t.” A cry bubbled up Smith’s throat, stifled by tight lips, and he moaned softly. Tears made his glassy brown eyes watery like a reflection. “I can’t. They’ll kill me. I can’t.”

Connor closed himself off – darkened expression, folded arms, crossed legs, dimmed eyes – and leaned back. “Then I can’t help you.” He sounded like Amanda. He stomach clenched.

The man blubbered, “W-What? Wait. Wha--?”

“Then I can’t help you.” Connor repeated. “If you can’t help me, then I can’t help you.” He sounded like Amanda and he wanted to _die._

Connor stood. He made for the door. The man called out, “Wait! Wait, please wait!” Connor grabbed the door handle. It burned. “Wait, please wait! Please! I…I need you.”

“You had your chance.” Connor jerked the door open. He imagined Perkins, Reed, and Anderson were standing in awe, shouting at him, cursing him to be damned. He imagined them screaming and telling him to just turn around, to talk.

But that was not how the game worked.

He needed to sound like Amanda.

“I’ll tell you everything!”

Connor stopped.

 _That_ was how the game worked.

“Please, I’ll tell you everything. Just…please, don’t do this. Please help me. Please.”

Connor glanced over his shoulder lazily, his heart betraying him, pounding miles per minute. He thought, for a moment, that Smith could see the rattling in his chest, the shortness of his breath, but logic took over. Smith could only see fear for his own survival. He did not see Connor’s weakness.

The chair seemed to tunnel and stretch in the distance. Adrenaline pulsed hard throughout his body, burning like wildfire. Connor sat down in the chair. “Then talk.” he whispered. “ _Now_.” Stern, but compassionate. That was what Amanda did. Compassion. Something Connor loathed. Feelings hurt. _Feeling_ hurt. Emotions hurt. The man before him squirmed with guilt and fear and it looked like it hurt. Anderson and Reed seethed anger and it looked like it hurt. Amanda used his emotions against him, once…

It hurt.

“I’m so scared.” Smith bawled. “I-I’m so scared. They’ll kill me.”

Compassion, Connor reminded himself. Compassion. “Who will kill you? RA-Nine? The leader?”

“Yes. Yes to it all! Please! I-I’m so s-scared.”

Smith had cracked like a nut, but the insides were still obscured by gooey gunk that Connor needed to wipe away to get to the details. He prodded carefully. “I can _help_ you, Cornelius. But first, you need to tell me what’s going on. Who will hurt you? _Why_ will they hurt you?”

“Markus.”

Connor’s lips parted. “Markus? Who is Markus?”

“The leader of RA-Nine. He’s our _savior_.” Smith mumbled. “He was supposed to be our _savior_. For all of us. But then… _she_ …”

“Who is ‘she’?” Connor asked.

Smith shook his head vehemently. “No. No, no, no, no. No. No, I can’t. No.”

“Who is ‘she’, Cornelius? I can’t protect you if I don’t know who ‘she’ is.”

Smith shrieked, guttural and high. He pulled back then rocked forward. His head collided with the metal tabletop, a thick crunch in the silent room. Connor jerked back, shocked. Anderson, Reed, and Perkins piled into the doorway as Smith reared back for another blow to his skull. He flew forward, pulled back, and dove forward again. And again. Anderson reached him, snagged his collar, and yanked him upright. Smith’s head lolled against Anderson’s arm.

“Fuck…” The lieutenant cursed. “Fuck, holy fuck.” Connor jumped from the table, shaky, and wheezed. Anderson pushed his meaty fingers below Smith’s jaw. “Fuck, he’s got a pulse, but _fuck_.”

“He’s going to be comatose for a long time, probably.” Perkins sighed.

Reed asked, “Why the _fuck_ he do that?”

“He was scared…” Connor whispered. He struggled to sew himself back together, slowly pulling the pieces of his mind into a whole and he cleared his throat, standing straight. “He was…scared. Distressed. There are instances where, when in high-stress environments, people can ‘self-destruct’, so to speak. That is why suicides and self-harm rates are higher amongst those who are in high-stress situations, such as college or university or when suffering from depression or anxiety disorders.”

Connor craved normalcy. The ‘compassion’ Amanda had used, that _he_ had used, made his stomach knot and screw tight and he felt sick. He moved forward, scanning Smith as he sat limp in Anderson’s arms. All he could see was blood. A red shirt, a red desk, a red face. Connor stared at the concave skull and white bone underneath. He blinked and turned away, continuing, “The likelihood of such a drastic self-destructive tendency is less than five percent. However, due to a stressful day, Smith likely could not handle it and, as such, attempted to commit suicide in the fastest way possible.” Wrong. It was less than three percent. Wrong. He used ‘stressful day’ over more favorable words, such as ‘taxing episodes-- “This…the likelihood of this was less than three percent. He…” Connor heard a small, metallic chime at his feet. He continued to stare at the wall. He hadn’t realized his coin was in his hand, rolling over and over, until he had dropped it. At his feet. Down. Connor looked down. He kept looking down. His body wouldn’t cooperate.

“--chart. Dechart. Can you hear me, kid?” Anderson. He reverted back to formalities. To surnames. Something in Connor burst at that. He wanted to cry. “Dechart. Look at me. Hey.” Anderson tapped his cheek. He yanked backwards. Anderson. When had Anderson moved?

“What…” Connor’s mouth felt thick, swollen with cotton. “What…is--”

“You with me?” The lieutenant asked.

Connor struggled to think. “Of course, lieutenant. Where else would I be?”

“Off in la-la land, maybe? Looking like you’re about to pass out?” Anderson hovered over him, one arm outstretched by Connor, as if to stop him should he teeter. Connor glanced over at Smith, who had been removed from the room, blood spatter still sticky and bright against the table.

Connor asked, quietly, “Where did Smith go…?”

“They took him away while you were losing your marbles. Rambling and all that good shit. Reed’s never going to let you live this down…” Anderson said. “You sure you’re all right?”

What had happened? How much time had passed? Connor couldn’t recall. He contemplated the origins of his stress; it could have been triggered by the recollection of Amanda’s interrogation, or perhaps the fear in disappointing Amanda? Connor’s brain was muddled, it was struggling to keep up with his demands. “I--…When…?”

“You need to sit down, kid.”

Connor said, “I am fine, lieutenant. I merely need to…gather my thoughts.”

Anderson’s hot hand wrapped around Connor’s upper arm. Connor instantly recoiled, jerking hard, but Anderson’s grip remained. The officers that were stuffed into the small room stared at them. Anderson dragged Connor out of the interrogation room and into the closest elevator as Connor said, louder and louder, “Let go, lieutenant. Let go. Let go!”

The doors slid shut. Anderson flipped the emergency stop and the capsule went dim save for the security lights. “Calm down. You need to relax.” Anderson ordered. Connor’s hand twitched. He reached into his pocket. No…he had dropped his coin.

“My coin.” Connor leaned over to hit the emergency stop button again, but Anderson swatted his hand away.

“Calm down.” Anderson repeated. “Just…I don’t know how to help you but you need to calm down. What do you need?”

Connor glared up at him. “I need my coin.”

“You need to calm the _fuck_ down.” Anderson growled. “Because you having freak outs every few days isn’t my style. You’re _my_ partner, which means you’re _my_ responsibility. So talk.”

Talk.

That’s what Amanda had said. She had told him to talk, words smooth and silky, and Connor had trusted her like a naïve child. She wanted him to talk, to admit his feelings. But feelings hurt. Everything hurt. Connor doubled over and gagged, coughing up spit, his throat constricting tight.

“Jesus _Christ_ , kid.” Anderson slammed the emergency stop.

Connor gasped, “My coin.” He blinked hard as he attempted to straighten himself out. Before him, fuzzy from the tears, his coin swam into view, held tight between Anderson’s fingers.

Anderson said, “Here. Take it. Sorry…” Connor snatched it quick and stood up, leaning against the back of the elevator for support. He felt so cold and hot, too overwhelmed. The elevator dinged and Connor’s ears rang. His reflection split apart as the doors opened to the first floor of the precinct and Connor cringed at the sounds, the noises, the stimuli branding his skin and carving his eardrums from their canals. His hands flew to his head and he tugged on hair.

“Come on.” Anderson. He forgot Anderson was next to him. The man grabbed him by the upper arm once again and Connor wanted to scream. He saw the officers’ faces, their glares, and he choked it down into his lungs. Anderson towed him to the back of the precinct and threw him into the men’s restroom which was, conveniently, empty. Connor reeled sideways into a wall as Anderson locked the door. “Speak up. What’s going on here?”

“Nothing.” Connor lied. He was a bad liar. Amanda had always said so.

Amanda. She would be disappointed. He was successful in the interrogation, but he was failing overall. His emotional instability was costing precious time and effort and, if he were more stable, he could have stopped Smith from inducing a coma upon himself. If he were faster, _smarter_ , he would have stopped Smith. He _should_ have stopped Smith. Connor yanked at his hair. Brown strands curled around the bases of his fingers.

“You’re a shit liar when it counts, kid.” Anderson’s hands fell to his hips. “Tell me what’s going on. We’ll figure something out.”

Connor eased his breathing into a somewhat steady rhythm. “And what about yourself, lieutenant.” Connor stared beyond Anderson, to the door. “Are you not suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder? Or are you simply a hypocrite who is in denial of his own condition. Alcoholism is an obvious sign.

“Don’t reverse psychology me, you bastard.” Anderson stabbed his pointer finger at Connor. “I’m not the one puking over every crime scene.”

“I…that does not pertain to the investigation .” Connor corrected.

“But you have PTSD.” Anderson stated.

Connor shied away. “I…” Confirming so would admit his emotional instability and, therefore, his need to depart from the case. He would fail the mission. But denying so would be just that: denial. The symptoms were there. The symptoms were always there. Amanda called them leverage. Connor called them burdening. “There are inconclusive studies to adequately determine--”

“Bullshit.”

“Lieutenant…”

“Bull. Shit.” Anderson stomped forward. “You’re fucked up something _good_ , kid. I can see it. Everyone can see it. You think you’re real sly at hiding it but you aren’t.”

“I fail to see how this affects the investigation.”

Anderson’s face reddened. “It does. It _fucking_ does. Because I got _shit_ riding on this job. I got _so much shit_ riding on this and if I can’t crack this case I’m going to drink myself to fucking _death_.”

Connor said, “Perhaps you should see a therapist.”

“And perhaps you should too.” Anderson softened, then, and his eyes darkened into pity. “Who fucked you up this bad, kid…?”

“It does not pertain to the investigation.”

“It does.”

Connor hesitated. It did. Anderson knew, and Connor knew as well. If he were to become emotionally compromised, everything would be over. And if Anderson was already emotionally compromised, he would fail without a doubt. Begrudgingly, Connor acknowledged that he needed Anderson as a crutch, likely just as much as Anderson needed him. “It does.” Connor admitted.

Anderson raised his head. “Then tell me what’s up. I’m not any psychology person or anything, but I’ll listen. Talking helps.”

“Do you know this from experience, lieutenant?” Connor inquired. “Or are you, once again, being a hypocrite?”

“Just talk, smartass.”

Connor’s tongue swelled. His head felt fuzzy. He was squeezing his hand so hard his coin drew scratches into his palm. “I…I don’t see how talking will assist in my emotional stability.”

“It does, so just tell me.” Anderson huffed when Connor said nothing and looked anywhere but at him. “Okay, tell me this. Just one thing.” He stuck up a finger. Connor watched it carefully. “Who is your mentor?”

Connor slackened. “Amanda Stern.”

“Stern?” Anderson gawked. “Like… _the_ Amanda Stern? She trained _you_?”

“Yes. She _is_ my adoptive mother.”

A cold grey overcame Anderson. He looked like a dreary day before rainfall, gloomy and lackluster. “Adoptive? Your parents--”

Connor struggled to swallow. Anderson had said this would help. He had to believe that. He latched onto that as he said in a low voice, “They are dead.”

“When…?”

“I was six at the time of the accident.” Connor’s voice wavered. He felt his break in his throat. “How does this pertain to the invest--”

“Stern raised you?” Anderson asked, more rhetorical than literal. “She’s a bitch. She’s _known_ for being a bitch.”

“She is not as deplorable as people would assume.” Connor said. “Her teachings are strict and demanding, but beneficial to all investigations.”

“Did she hurt you?” Anderson asked.

Emotions hurt. Amanda taught him not to feel. “When necessary.” Connor said. “Physical… _persuasion_ is…” He struggled. Why was he struggling? Amanda had taught him not to feel. Why was he feeling? “It…was necessary.”

“No wonder you’re fucked up. She’s got you in a shit headspace.” Anderson mumbled.

The bathroom doorknob jiggled. Connor and Anderson stared over at it as someone began knocking.

“We’ll talk later.” Anderson said. Connor didn’t want to talk. He felt disgusting. He felt vulnerable, laid bare and exposed for the world to see. He wanted to vomit again, but wouldn’t. He couldn’t give Anderson the satisfaction. “Just…promise me, okay. Promise you’ll come to me if you’re going through…whatever you’re going through. You’re too young, you've got your whole life ahead of you, you don’t need to go through this shit. Not at this age.”

Connor reached over and unlocked the bathroom door. He pulled it open to come face-to-face with a small, mouse-like officer. He turned to Hank and said, “Have a good evening, lieutenant. Please, get approximately ten hours of sleep tonight, as you are suffering from a severe case of exhaustion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Okay, so I am the W O R S T. I'm SO SORRY. I was like "oh I'll post on Saturday or Sunday anD LAST I CHECKED MY WATCH IT IS M O N D AY and I am so sorry. School and unpacking and all that jazz took up so much time and before I knew it I was hitting the pillow last night at like midnight like, "OH FUCK I FORGOT TO WRITE ACONITUM!"
> 
> So...here we are. My bad. I am so sorry. Because of that, this chapter is a bit rushed. So I apologize for that, too, but I couldn't keep you guys waiting. Sorry @Shadownightes for lyING TO YOU. AH. I SAID SUNDAY AND I L I E D. I'm sos orrry. Ah.
> 
> Anyway. Yeah, so that's this chapter. What's up. Amanda's a bitch.
> 
> And yo, are we not going to talk about how you guys just let me call "quantic dream" "quantum dreams" for the longest fucking time because you guys said NOTHING to me and now I look like a dumbass. I mean that's chill because I lowkey am but still. For like...three chapters. I called it fucking "quantum dreams". Eugh. Nailed it.
> 
> Anyhoo. Thanks for reading. You guys are all amazing. Honestly. I never thought I'd get this much attention and it makes me nervous as hell but that's okay. It's a good nervous. It's a nervous that makes me want to write for you guys even moreso.
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	5. Waiting for Hank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_Date: Unknown – Time: Unknown_

_Wolf Trap, Virginia_

_The Garden – Safe_

White beads of sand rolled under Connor’s shoes as he walked, compact and grainy, splayed out across the multiple pathways in the garden. Connor blinked blearily, clearing the fog from his mind, his thoughts clogged like tar in lungs. He breathed in deep, smoothing himself into the familiar surroundings. The garden was serene, as usual, with warm colors of spring radiating around him in the flower blossoms and tree leaves. It smelled fresh of rain, a silky dew painting the plants in watercolor.

Connor remembered his mother’s garden, from decades before, housing lilies and petunias and exotic grasses that reminded him, as a child, of his brother’s crop of spiky hair. An inner warmth made him smile. But then he remembered where he was; not his mother’s garden, but _the_ garden. Amanda’s garden.

Amanda was nowhere to be seen. The pond was still and the center area was empty. Where she had normally stood, nurturing her bloody red roses, was quiet and untouched. The roses were climbing out of control, clambering up the metal wall trellis – iron, painted black, approximately seven feet tall by three feet wide – as they battled for sunlight.

Where Amanda had normally stood, ushering a prompt, “good morning, Connor”, was eerily void of her large presence. She stood no taller than the level of his throat, but the air she breathed made her seem to tower over him, to become the garden around him.

Connor felt awkward and obstructive in the garden alone. Even when he had trained as a teenager, spending hours upon hours, someone was there. Whether it was Kamski, Chloe, or Amanda, Connor was never alone. Someone had always been there, exposing his wrongs, correcting his rights, spectating his every movement, his every blink, his every breath. Without them, the garden felt sticky and hot and still.

“Amanda?” Connor called. He waited for an answer, unmoving, unthinking, waiting for her instruction. Silence followed. He sighed softly and glanced around. The boat was tied to a small wood post in the ground – it took ten hours and twenty-two minutes to hammer it in, rip it out, hammer it in, rip it out, and again and again until it satisfied Amanda – and the oars were resting inside. Off to his left, the graveyard sat, raked and cleared of weeds and wild grass.

Connor’s heart pinched. He hadn’t visited them in years. Two years, six days, thirteen hours, and fifty-seven minutes to be exact. Work pumped him full of constant tasks and tedious paperwork, leaving no room for error nor deviation. He imagined Chloe tended to the sites. She had always helped him, even when they were younger. He remembered, so clearly as if it were days ago, when she would walk him to and from school, staying close but never touching unless he confirmed her question to do so. She had stood by him when he would mourn, kneel before him when he hurt, and whispered to him when the world became too loud and everything became too much.

How he _missed_ Chloe…there wasn’t an adequate description to depict how he wanted to see her smile again.

“Connor.”

Amanda.

Connor turned slowly with expectance. He met the silence behind him and frowned. He continued to turn until he went full circle and ran his tongue over his lip. “Amanda? Where are you?”

“You’ve disappointed me, Connor.”

Her lack of physical presence didn’t perturb him. She was the garden.

Connor held his chin higher. “I apologize for any discrepancies during my investigation. To what event are you referring to, Amanda?”

“Zlatko.”

Zlatko was months ago. She had remedied the situation as best she could, filing the paperwork and apologizing to whom she needed as Connor flailed in the wind, trying to regain his bearings and remain as professional as possible. She had assured him of a final chance, told him to take the first flight to Detroit to solve a string of murders and, if he succeeded, he could come back home. Everything was put into order. His cards were down and laid bare for all to see.

Why was she bringing up Zlatko now? “Amanda, I…I fail to see the relevance of the Zlatko mission when pertaining to the RA-Nine investigation.”

“You let them die, Connor. You let _her_ die. You broke your promise.”

Indeed, he had. Connor recalled their eyes, their screams, her wail of agony as she watched her daughter hit the floor as a lifeless lump of flesh and blood and bone. Connor shivered. “I…I don’t see…What--…Where is the relevance?”

“You are beginning to sound like Anderson, Connor.”

Hank Anderson. Lazy, avoidant, irresponsible, riddled with holes and errors and mistakes that were impossible to undo. He was beginning to sound like Hank. “Again, Amanda. I fail to see the relevance. When introduced to new settings with new people, one tends to mirror their peers. Therefore, I am equally as susceptible to lieutenant Anderson’s mannerisms and speech patterns as he is to mine.”

“Irrelevant. You sound like him.”

“Amanda--”

“Irrelevant. Will you end up like _him_?”

“Who?”

“Irrelevant. Will you end up like _him_?”

Hank Anderson…would Connor end up like him? Hurt, tending to a wound that would never heal. Licking an injury that would continue to gush blood so long as he lived. The gaping chasm that Cole Anderson’s death carved into Hank would consume and feed off of the lieutenant, no matter how hard he tried to fill it with alcohol and drown himself in it.

Amanda knew that Connor was bothered by the lack of background information he could acquire from Hank. Amanda knew that the lieutenant’s son was as great a mystery as the RA-Nine cases.

What _had_ happened to Cole Anderson? The question ricocheted throughout Connor’s thoughts as he worked to piece things together. The man had died six months previously from unknown causes as autopsy reports and first responder information was delimited, confined to only a few individuals. Cole was twenty-eight years old, six foot three, unknown weight at the time of death but, twenty-two months prior he had a physical which weighed him in at two-hundred-ten pounds. The doctor had not reported any suspicious health nor mannerisms, meaning Cole was likely healthy at the time of his death.

So what had happened? What transpired six months ago?

“I’m not Hank Anderson.” Connor stated roughly. “I will not end up in a…a limbo-like state of grief. I’m stronger than him. He is controlled by his emotions. I control mine. You trained me to do so.”

“Will you end up like _him_?”

Him.

Cole Anderson.

“I do not plan on dying any time soon, Amanda. I have a mission to accomplish, and I will not rest until I am successful.” Connor said.

“Can I trust you?”

Connor nodded to himself. “You can count on me, Amanda. You trained me, after all.”

“You have a weakness.”

She had called him “high-functioning”, as if he were anything but functioning. As if he was a prize, the first place spot, the golden chalice. As if he were a machine.

He was bitter about the term long ago, in his youth.

She beat him into acceptance.

“My weakness will not become me.” Connor worked to relax his muscles. His hands tensed on their own. “You have trained me to overcome it. To function as necessary and to integrate myself into society as a normal person.”

“You _are_ a weakness, Connor.”

He glanced over his shoulder at a shadow in his periphery.

Amanda.

She stepped before him. She was charred with disgust.

“I…” Connor stumbled. He _was_ a weakness. His weakness was his undoing. He _was_ weak. “I apologize, Amanda. I…I will do better.”

She hissed “What are you doing right now, Connor?”

Connor’s eyebrows pinched. “Talking to you, Amanda.”

“What are you doing right now, Connor?” she repeated.

“I am talking to you, Amanda. I don’t understand--”

Connor’s mouth snapped shut involuntarily. His limbs locked and muscles iced over until he could no longer feel his body. He felt like nothing. He felt bodiless, like a void. Amanda slipped forward. One of her hands grabbed his wrist, the other clamped around the back of his neck, and she jerked him closer, inches from her face.

“What are you doing right now, Connor?

Connor felt his soul squirming but his body was complaint, lax in her grasp, malleable like putty. She kicked his shins out from under him. He dropped to his knees soundlessly, eyes staring ahead, unseeing yet seeing everything around him. Amanda tilted his head back, thumb at his hairline, glaring into his own empty eyes.

“What are you doing now, Connor? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you _feel_?”

He saw nothing but everything. He could hear everything but nothing. He could feel nothing but felt…something. It hurt. It burned from the inside out, pulsating from his heart through his veins, catching fire to his arteries and blood vessels, combusting his senses with overstimulation. Connor could only gasp.

“What do you _feel_?”

Amanda loomed over him. Her shadow blackened his world. The garden collapsed around them, folding into itself, leaving them suspended in nothing. Connor couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t _breathe_.

“Fear.” Connor whimpered. “I’m _scared_.”

“And what did I teach you?”

Black tendrils wormed around Amanda’s form, distorting her, ripping her flesh away, snapping her bones, devouring her. Connor wanted to scream. He was voiceless.

“What did I teach you, Connor?”

Her body crumbled. Her voice was too loud.

“What did I teach you, Connor?”

Connor wanted to run. To cry out. To _move_.

“What did I teach you?”

Connor opened his mouth. He worked his lungs. His throat constricted and face twisted as he screamed soundlessly.

“What did I teach you?”

The darkness tugged at his arms and legs, popping them off, prying away the tendons and ligaments, tearing him apart. It _hurt_.

“What. Did. I. Teach. You.”

Connor slackened. He took a shaky breath. It echoed in the nothing. “Emotion is vulnerability.” His voice broke. “Vulnerability is weakness.”

Alice appeared before him, a gun tight in her small hands. The darkness released Connor and he dropped forward to his chest, shaking, trembling with _fear_ , as he stared down at her shoes. His gaze flitted up to meet the girl’s face. Two pale hands rested on Alice’s shoulders, a slim frame solid like a wall behind her. Connor kept looking up.

Kara.

Connor choked.

“K-Kara…” He cried. “Kara, I’m…I-I’m so _sorry_. I’m so _sorry_. _Please_.” Kara worked the gun from Alice’s pliant fingers. She pulled the safety back and cocked the gun without hesitation. Connor stared down the barrel, breathless. In desperation, he cried out, “Kara _wait please don’t!_ ”

She pulled the trigger.

 

 

 

_17 November 2018 – 00:39.09_

_1777 3 rd Avenue [9th Floor, Room No. 908]_

_The Grande Hotel – Temporary Living Quarters_

Connor rushed into reality was a strangled cry. The gunshot still rang in his ears. He flung his pillow somewhere onto the floor and bolted upright. He ripped the sheets from around his legs, struggling to pry himself free. Connor tumbled off the bed, collapsing in a heap on the carpet. His lungs shut down, hyperventilating, shaking, body uncooperating and mind shrieking.

The bathroom was too far away. Connor pushed himself up with jelly arms and rested on his elbows, panting, drooling with the need to vomit. He swallowed it down.

He wanted to curl into himself. He wanted to peel off his sweat-soaked shirt, peel off his skin, too, and just disappear. Connor groaned as his stomach raged and bubbled and he coughed on air. He collapsed in a rattled heap when his arms gave out. The carpet was scratchy against his cheek. “Please don’t throw up please don’t throw up please don’t throw up _pleasedontthrowuppleasedontthrowuppleasedontthrowup…_ ” His chant became gibberish, soundless and terse as he squeezed his eyes and shivered. He seethed through his teeth. “Don’t fucking throw up. Don’t. _Don’t._ ”

Hank was wrong. Talking had not helped. Talking had churned bad memories with even worse ones, creating a concoction of disgusting filth that he would later have to sort out.

Connor rolled his neck. He slammed his forehead against the carpet. “Stop. _Stopstopstop._ ” He tugged at his hair and chewed on a scream. “Stopstop _stopstopfuckingstop._ ” What would Amanda say if she had seen him? Deplorable? Unprofessional? Weak? Weak. She would see him as weak. As he writhed on the floor she would look down on him and see her hard work unravelling at the seams.

“Pathetic,” she would say. “Absolutely unacceptable.”

“ _Stopleasestopfucking--_ ” His voice snapped. He choked on tears. “…just… _stop_ …”

His gut didn’t stop. His throat continued to burn. His eyes insistently watered, tears slipping down his cheeks. He couldn’t move. Connor gasped on the floor like a beached fish, trapped, his mind reeling. Amanda was disappointed. Amanda hated him. _Amanda wanted him dead. Everyone wanted him dead._

He heard the gunshot again. Connor wailed into the carpet. He yanked at his hair, covering his ears.

Amanda wanted him _dead_. She killed him. Alice killed him. _Kara_ killed him. Kara wanted him _dead_. He saw her. Her eyes, wide, unfocused, _dead_. Alice was dead. He killed them and his mind teetered on the edge of insanity as he hammered his forehead into the floor again and again and again until his skull throbbed and silence followed.

His breathing filled the room. Connor glanced around for something to count, eyes scanning the shadowy grey blue room until he pushed himself onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. His gaze jumped to a hole in the westmost corner and he began counting. Counting every miniscule mistake that the construction workers created. One hole, two holes, three holes, three holes one crack, four holes two cracks…

His mind went as numb as his body as he counted until his eyes fluttered shut and sleep stole his consciousness.

 

 

 

_17 November 2018 – 10:14.08_

_1301 3 rd Avenue_

_Detroit Police Department’s Central Station – Workplace_

“Christ, what happened to you?” Perkins looked as bitter as the black coffee in his hand. “Looks like you got ran over by a dump truck.”

Connor wedged his thumb into the corner of his eye, pulling the crust away. “I can assure you that I was not “run over”, as you say, as I would have multiple fatal injures, and I would likely be hospitalized and in a comatose state if I were hit by a thirty-thousand pound vehicle moving at an average speed of thirty-five miles-per-hour.” Only when Perkins sighed did Connor realize the man’s sarcasm. “A-Apologies, agent Perkins. Forgive my…my…”

“Stupidity?” Perkins asked.

Connor hesitated with closed eyes. “N-No…No not that…”

“I’m just joking, kid. Relax.” He patted Connor on the shoulder. Connor closed his fists tight. He jerked his coin from his pocket, recalling his handy book, page one-fifteen, where, “some people do not understand the nuances of oversensitivity and, therefore, can invade personal space and situations wherein the best possible remedy is to promptly excuse oneself and explain the wrongdoings of the other person”.

Connor rolled his eyes.

Perkins wouldn’t understand “the wrongdoings” he committed. Instead, Connor said, “Don’t touch me.” The agent reeled his hand in against his chest.

“Shit, all right. Just…fucking around, kid.”

“I am designated as an adult in all countries in the world, legally allowed to consume alcohol, drive, vote, and join military operations. Therefore, please do not refer to me in such a demeaning manner. I am an adult.” Connor snapped. He flipped his coin in his hand. Irritation picked at the soft points in his flesh. He wanted to strangle someone. “Please excuse me, agent Perkins.” He said, pushing himself away from his desk and stomping off down the hall.

He could barely function. The night was longer than he had anticipated, and he had woken up a total of seven times due to cold sweats and fever-fueled dreams. Eventually, Connor decided to wake early at four in the morning and, as the day dragged on, his shoulders began to droop and he felt heavier than he should. He wanted nothing more than to finish the workday, file his paperwork, eat approximately sixteen-hundred calories between two balanced meals, and go back to his hotel room to sleep. Perkins was nowhere in his equation.

Connor walked in a circle, eyeing his desk every few seconds to check to see if Perkins departed. After snooping over what files Connor was overlooking, the man sauntered away and towards the break room. Connor retreated back to his desk, dropped into the chair, and continued to type.

His words were blurring. Everything was blurry. He glared at his screen, a congealed mess of curls and straight lines that made no sense to him suddenly. “Are” took him three attempts and two second-guesses before he deemed that, yes, it was spelled correctly and, yes, it _was_ a word, and he was able to move on. His pointer fingers stabbed the keys slowly, at half-beats, every letter looking wrong and every word looking even wronger…

…more wrong…

Yes, more wrong was the correct terminology.

“Special agent Dechart?” Connor looked up at officer Chen, then beyond her, to where Reed was fumbling with something at his desk. She waved with a petite hand, grabbing Connor’s attention, before she asked, “Excuse me, but you haven’t seen detective Anderson, have you?”

Connor looked back down at his terminal. “The lieutenant’s whereabouts are of his own concern. I apologize, but I’m unable to help you locate him. Perhaps captain Fowler can be of assistance--”

“No. I don’t need help. It’s for you.” Chen interrupted. Connor squeezed his eyes. She continued, “I overheard the captain talking to special agent Perkins. Lieutenant Anderson is not at his house, and he’s not picking up any phone calls. The captain says he’s probably out drinking, since he always answers his phone unless he’s drunk or wanting to get drunk. But anyway, apparently, there’s been an anonymous tip about an RA-Nine red ice dealer being seen squatting nearby. Fowler wants you and lieutenant Anderson to check it out, but since the lieutenant’s not here, you can’t go.”

“Captain Fowler doesn’t want me going alone?” Connor glanced over at where Perkins and Reed conglomerated in the break room with their bitter black coffees, gossiping over something. “Are agent Perkins and detective Reed unable to go?”

“They’re busy.” Chen said. “Or, the captain said they were busy. Something about some new files coming in to sort.”

“I see…” Connor stood up. He wavered, only just, and dropped his fingers to the desk to steady himself as he said, “Well then, I’ll go investigate by myself. Please inform captain Fowler of my decision.”

“You can’t.” Chen spoke up. Connor blinked down at her. “Captain Fowler said you’re not allowed to go alone.”

“And why is that?” Connor snarled. The probability of it being because of his weakness was higher than eighty percent, as Connor knew that the precinct found him to be a liability of stupidity. Despite being high-functioning, he was still autistic.

He was still weak.

Chen stared at Connor as if he were crazy. The percentages rose to ninety-nine percent. Connor prepared a gruesome retort.

“Because…” Chen shrugged. “It’s…policy? Officers aren’t allowed to go to dangerous scenes without backup? They don’t have that in the FBI?”

Percentages dropped to zero.

Connor deflated. “I…Yes. Of course. My apologies.”

“Are you okay, agent Dechart? You look a little…green.” Chen cringed.

Connor wracked his brain. “Why would I appear to have a green pigmentation--” Sarcasm. He backpedaled. “My apologies. Yes, I am…I am fine. Thank you for your concern.”

“Are you sure? I can reserve one of the examination rooms for you if you want to take a nap or something?” Chen asked. She gestured over her shoulder, to the elevator where the medical wing was one floor up.

The thought of sleeping again, of seeing Amanda or Alice or Kara again, made Connor sway once again. He played it off as rocking back to grab his coat off the back of his chair. “No. I’ll be all right. Sleeping during the workday is unprofessional, officer Chen. But I appreciate the gesture, however reprimandable it may be.” He slipped his jacket on and shrugged his shoulders. “Please inform captain Fowler that I am going to go find the lieutenant. If all goes well, we will investigate the anonymous tip and be back before the end of the day.”

 

 

 

_17 November 2018 – 11:25.15_

_2130 Michigan Avenue_

_Jimmy’s Bar – Location No.5_

The rundown pub smelled of cheap alcohol and cigarettes. Connor cleared his throat with trouble, peering through the dim lit haze of smoke as he scanned the clutter of people for Hank. Connor recognized many of the patrons as ex-convicts and known criminals, as some faces sat high on the wanted list on the police department’s roster. However, Connor was not itching for an arrest, nor was he looking for a confrontation. He wanted to find the lieutenant and leave.

Finding him, however, was proving difficult.

After the third bar he had searched, Connor felt like giving up hope and simply tracking the lieutenant’s phone, regardless of the legality of the situation. However, his judgement overtook him as he crossed the road and searched the fourth bar.

As he weaved between the patrons of the fifth bar – Jimmy’s Bar, constructed in nineteen-twenty-seven as a high-end bakery of sweets and sour doughs – Connor felt himself tiring. He felt faint. He pushed around a crowd of gentlemen, one of whom cursed him but Connor paid no attention. He worked his way towards the back of the bar, looking at every face he could as he went. The booths were filled to the brim with people, and all bar stools were occupied and even more so. Connor noted that, on a chalk board overhead of the bartender, drinks were listed as half off and happy hour was between ten in the morning to two in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, everything made sense, then.

And Connor had wondered why the other four bars seemed so barren.

Connor slipped between the patrons, earning stares and profanities as he made his way to the last of the bar stools and furthest booth. He determined that the aggressive behaviors were likely due to his attire – formal casual, with a white button-up and a black tie, his usual, and a dark grey sports coat under his black winter coat – as well as his credentials – FBI badge clipped to his hip, over his belt, and a VIP badge wrapped around his neck to access the Detroit Police Department’s evidence lockers, interrogation rooms, lower levels, and holding cells – and, as he pushed forward, he found himself increasingly on edge.

He hated touching so many people. To brush against arms and other legs and bodies that were warm and disgusting and too close and too personal: it made Connor twitch. He would pull out his fidget, but he figured he would either drop it, a thirty percent chance, or someone would steal it, a seventy percent chance.

A man whistled behind him, high-pitched and nauseating to his ears, and someone snagged Connor’s wrist. Connor whipped around, jerking free, already prepared to recite something he had found most people to find annoying, when he came face-to-face with the offender. “Damn. Nice suit.” the man slurred. “Looks good on you.”

Connor was confused. Nonetheless, he regurgitated niceties. “I appreciate the compliment. Now, if you will excuse me…”

“I’d love to see it on my floor if you know what I mean.” The man winked.

Connor stared blankly. “No. I do not understand your instigations. Are you implying that I would leave my attire at your residence on a whim? Or are you implying that, perhaps, you would be _stealing_ my attire for your own gain and, therefore, would be threatening the wellbeing of an FBI agent on duty?”

The man blubbered. “The fuck…?” People around them stared, some snickering, others guzzling down their drinks with frowns.

Connor raised his eyebrow. “Well? What is your true implication? Are you expecting me to abandon my shift – a highly unlikely scenario, might I add – to accompany you to your residence, only to leave my personal belongings there? Or are you stating that you plan to steal my clothing for your own gain? I must say, if it is the latter situation, you are unfortunately going to be dismayed as I believe you are a size forty--”

“Connor?”

Connor turned around to Hank’s voice. The lieutenant sat hunched over the bar, overlooking his shoulder with a pulled face, nursing a short glass of a golden drink.

“Lieutenant,” Connor walked away from the strangers and to Hank. “I am… _relieved_ to have found you at the fifth bar.”

Hank laughed softly. “Fifth? You looked through three others?”

“Four, lieutenant.” Connor folded his hands behind his back. “And that is correct. I have been looking for you for over an hour.”

“Shit…” Hank took a swig of his drink and nodded behind them. “What’d that guy want with you?”

Connor chewed his cheek. The noise was becoming too much. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “He…He wanted to steal my clothing, I believe.”

“What?”

“He wanted to steal my clothing.” Connor repeated. “Either that, or he was implying that I would simply _leave_ my clothing at his residence. How or why I would _be_ at his residence in the first place is not clear.”

“Wait…” Hank held up his hand. He turned the bar stool, facing Connor. Connor looked at Hank’s lips. “What did the guy even say?”

“He said that he would have found it enjoyable to have seen my attire, specifically my jacket, on the floor of his residence. However, he should know that this cost quite a bit of money and I would not simply leave it on the floor to be mishandled.” While Connor frowned, bothered by the man’s obscene gestures, Hank’s mouth quivered. The lieutenant burst, sputtering, laughing loud. Connor frowned deeper. “Lieutenant, I do not see the joke in this situation? What is funny?”

“Connor…” Hank smiled. His eyes glistened. For once, he looked genuine. “Connor, oh Connor, kiddo, he…” He waved Connor forward. Connor dipped his head a bit. “Connor, the guy was hitting on you.”

Perhaps Connor had misheard. “Lieutenant, I can assure you the man did not assault me…”

“No no no no, not…” Hank laughed again. Connor determined that the lieutenant was not quite drunk, but not necessarily sober, either. He doubted he would find Connor as amusing if he were not drinking. “No, Connor, he was _flirting_. You know? He wanted the jacket on the floor, like he was, like…you know? Take it off and stuff…”

Connor’s eyes widened. “Really?” He turned around, glancing back at the man who had otherwise occupied himself with another gentleman. “Oh…” Connor faced Hank once again. “I…seemed to have missed that innuendo. How flattering…”

“Anyway…” Hank slurred. “What’re you here for?”

The mission.

Connor wanted to slap himself for his unprofessionalism. For getting carried away by trivial things. Amanda…she would have certainly beaten him for his lack of results in a timely fashion. “Lieutenant, I require your assistance. There has been an anonymous tip about an RA-Nine member being seen near the warehouse district. He is a known seller of red ice, named Rupert Travis. Captain Fowler wishes for us to investigate the scene and apprehend the suspect if he is still on site.”

Hank melted. He tipped his drink back and downed the rest. “Oh…I’m not going, Connor…”

Connor glanced at the alcohol the bartender was pouring Hank – single malt whiskey, Royal Lochnagar, alcohol content at forty-percent of volume brand of seven-hundred milliliters – and calculated how much money he had in his pocket: fifty-two dollars, no change. Loose change made noise and noise made Connor frustrated.

He attempted to wash out the bar’s chatter as he leaned closer to the lieutenant. “I apologize for the inconvenience, lieutenant, but it is uncommon _and_ unprofessional for someone of your reputation to be drinking alcohol at eleven-twenty-seven in the morning.” Connor said. Hank scoffed. “I must insist. My instructions stipulate that you accompany me to the scene of the investigation.”

Hank chuckled. “You know where you can stick those instructions?”

Connor thought for a moment. He still couldn’t determine whether the lieutenant was being sarcastic or literal. With his lack of sleep, nothing made sense to Connor. He found the world as confusing as a foreign language. “No…” Connor’s eyebrows popped up. “Where?”

Hank’s smile drooped. His mouth hung open and he mumbled, “Never mind.” He set the glass down. “You don’t want me at a crime scene right now, Connor…I’m drunk as fuck, not going to get anything done at all.”

Connor sighed. The noise hurt. He scrunched his face and struggled to speak clearly. “Lieutenant, I must insist. I need you to be on scene. You may stay in the car. I will drive and I will investigate and apprehend any individuals on site.” Connor’s hands found his hair. He didn’t remember pulling them from his pockets. “Besides, you aren’t drunk yet. I can tell by--”

“Fuck…” Hank rolled backwards in his seat. “Fuck…okay…okay, just…give me a second.” He pushed up out of the chair, threw down his tip, and stumbled backwards into Connor. Connor cursed under his breath – Amanda would scold him, he choked on the word – and slowly led the way to Hank’s car.

Connor had a license. Amanda had insisted. However, driving was something he despised, as it created clutter on the road, left him anxious and frustrated, and overstimulated him in a constant manner. Yet the mission was more important that he was, and as Connor took the keys from Hank’s hand, Hank asked, “You good?”

“Of course, lieutenant.” Connor said. “Please get into the car.”

“No, I mean it. You good?”

Connor got into the car wordlessly. After starting the engine, Hank silently dipped into the passenger seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Oh man, it's so nice to see you all. And it's even nicer to hear from you all. Your comments and kudos fuel me to write more and more and more! I'm so glad you're all loving it and I'm losing my mind from all this support. It's wild!
> 
> Over 2000 people have viewed this fic? Ya'll, this is awesome. I'm so happy. Truly. I'm so happy. Especially since these AU fics don't get much attention around here, it's wild to see you guys liking it this much. And to hear people say it's accurately written and true to character and all that good shit is just...hnnng thank youuuuuu.
> 
> AND THEN I'M WRITING THIS ON TOP OF IT ALL.
> 
> No but honestly, I'm loving this fic. I'm loving where it's progressing, I'm loving that you're loving it, and I'm loving that I have such a cool group of people to talk to. Bryan was right, this fandom is really filled with wonderful, beautiful people. Honestly. I couldn't have asked for anything better than you guys. 
> 
> But yeah, let me know how you like the progression so far. Because it's just as much of a mystery to me as it is to you guys. Like, I have the rough outlines out in my head, but that's it. Literally. Like for this chapter, this is what I had written down for an outline: "Connor waits around the precinct. Fowler says they got a case. Hank's at a bar. It gets salty."
> 
> As you can see, I don't have much to go off of. AND AS YOU CAN SEE, I didn't even write that. Like, my chapter turned out completely different from the outline. Because the way I write basically makes it so it's just as much of a surprise to me as it is for you. I don't know what I'm going to write. I don't really plan ahead. It just naturally progresses to what you see and then bam I post it no reading it over no editing just slap it on the page and click post.
> 
> But anyway, thank you. Truly. Cannot say that enough. Without further ado, I hope to see you guys and more new friends in future chapters!
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	6. The Nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_17 November 2018 – 11:56.22_

_265 Acre Avenue_

_Detroit Urban Farms Apartments – Crime Scene No.3_

Connor’s pistol pushed hard against his hip, heavier than normal. It was an odd sensation, but an entirely unfounded one as, Connor knew, that his Glock could not have gained or lost any mass. Inanimate objects would remain the same weight so long as gravity was constant and nothing was added or taken away and, yet, as Connor pulled up to the rickety apartments where Rupert Travis was said to reside, the firearm dug into his side, chunky and awkward under his coat where it had normally rested seamlessly.

He shifted in the driver’s seat and killed the engine. Hank groaned and leaned further into his seat before he peeked out the window. The sun made him squint and he scowled. “This is the place?”

Connor leaned forward to look around the lieutenant. The complex was grim, with black fractures infecting the infrastructure and slipping up the walls. Vines burrowed under the doors and burst through the windows. An identical building a few feet away had caved in, the ribs snapping and flesh collapsing in on itself like a flail chest. Connor sighed. “Correct, lieutenant.”

Finding focus became difficult. As Connor worked to scan the surrounding area, shapes blobbed together and colors became a mishmash of dull hues in his tired eyes. “We should investigate quickly.” Connor stated. He shouldered the door open. It’s shriek pulled his muscles taut. “Every second wasted is another moment for the suspect to escape.”

“Who is this guy anyway?” Hank lumbered towards the building. He mirrored its slouched position. “Some…asshole, probably, right?”

“I told you earlier, lieutenant, at the bar. His name is Rupert Travis, aged thirty-seven. Two months ago he was suspected of identity documentation forgery but was ultimately released due to a lack of substantial evidence. Currently, he has been identified as the main seller of red ice for RA-Nine.” Connor walked up the steps to the apartment complex. “He purchased this apartment building – room four-oh-three – approximately three weeks prior to his conviction. He has lived here since.”

“In this place?” Hank pointed to the closed door. “Who the fuck would want to live here?”

Connor jerked the lobby door open. “Travis, apparently. ” Connor answered mechanically.

“Smart ass.”

Inside, the linoleum floors were scrubbed with dirt and road salt, staining the black tiles grey and the white tiles black. A chandelier loomed overhead, three of the seven lights out, one due to a broken bulb, two likely from burned coils. It rocked above them from a light breeze that whistled throughout the hollow building. Stairs snaked around the edges of the building and hallways branched off on every floor.

Four floors, ten rooms per floor, with three housing tenants and one used for laundry, maintenance staff, and the landlady, approximated roughly thirty to sixty people total, at a maximum of one-hundred people. Connor, however, deduced that the likelihood of families living in such disgusting situations was relatively minimalistic.

Connor made for the stairs.

“Hey Connor.” He turned around. Hank shrugged softly. “Let’s take the elevator.”

Connor stared at Hank. “Why, lieutenant? Are you injured? Or perhaps you are feeling ill? I recommend that we call for additional officers if that is the case, as--”

“Not for me, dumbass.” Hank mumbled. Connor didn’t blink. “It’s for you.” He gestured to Connor weakly. “Look, kid. I may be old and I may be a bit tipsy but I’m not stupid. You look dead on your feet.”

“I can assure you th--”

“We’re taking the elevator, Connor.”

Connor squeezed the railing tight when his balance shifted without him. He took a steady breath. “Lieutenant, I can assure you that it will be far faster if we take the stairs, as there are only ten stairs per--”

Hank said, calmly, “We’re taking the elevator. Let’s go. Scoot.”

“Lieutenant, I--”

“Let’s go.” Hank moved to the lift, pulling the gate open. It squealed and Connor ground his teeth. He slapped his hands over his ears as he stared over at Hank. Hank continued, “If there’s some guy really up there, then I need you on your A-game, or as A as you can be right now. So get your ass in the elevator. We’re not walking up four flights.”

The lieutenant, much to Connor’s dismay, had a point. Connor assumed that, with his current energy levels, he could operate for roughly one more hour with light to moderate activity before he collapsed. He would only last about fifteen minutes should he exert himself, and stairs required physical exertion.

A chase with a suspect would, too, require physical exertion.

He swallowed thickly. His hands slipped off his ears and he stumbled down the steps awkwardly, shuffling in to stand next to Hank. Hank looked at him sideways and said, “This’ll be unpleasant so just hang tight.”

Connor covered his ears again.

Hank jerked the metal grating closed and punched the button for the fourth floor. The elevator jostled and groaned as it heaved up the ropes to the top level. Time stretched and Connor felt himself rocking slightly on his heels, soothing himself into a submissive, calmer state. He closed his eyes slowly.

He felt the warmth of security wrap around his shoulders and he pictured the garden. He pictured Amanda and her wisdom, teaching him everything she knew. He pictured Chloe. Connor smiled softly. How he had missed Chloe.

He had forgotten to call her. Of all the things Connor would forget, he had never thought calling Chloe would be one of them. She had given him his space, as she always promised she would, but when Connor promised to call her, to assure her he was all right, he had failed to do so. He imagined her distress at his lack of communication for over seventy-two hours.

It had hit Connor, then. He had only been in Detroit for two and a half days. Everything felt thick and heavy like syrup over his joints and Connor rocked a little faster. He had been in Detroit for less than three days and he was already exhausted, pulled to his maximum, pushed to the brink, overflowing with stress and anxiety and tension beyond belief.

Amanda had said he wasn’t ready for the field. She had told him with Zlatko and she had told him with Detroit. And she was right.

Amanda was always right.

The elevator rocked and stopped. He briefly heard Hank jerk the grating open and step out, but Connor didn’t move. He continued to teeter in his place, finger pads pressing hard against his skull. He missed Chloe so much…

“Hey Connor.” Connor opened his eyes. He let his hands slide down, slowly, breathing even slower and blinking the slowest. He feared if he closed his eyes, they might never open again and he would fall unconscious from exhaustion. Hank smirked, “You need new batteries or something?”

Had Hank meant that literally or figuratively? Connor felt grainy and raw and tired and nothing made sense. Literal requirement of batteries was likely incorrect, as his phone was fully charged and he had no need for a replacement battery. Metaphorical batteries, however, were more perceptive of the lieutenant and, therefore, correct. Connor needed sleep. He needed to recharge. He needed nothing more than a release of the pent-up tension that boiled under his skin and froze his organs stiff.

He needed to breathe.

Connor hadn’t taken a clear, clean breath in days. Weeks, even. Chloe would argue months.

“No.” Connor stated bluntly. “I do not require any batteries.”

Hank raised his eyebrow. “Well, do you plan on standing in the elevator all day?”

“No.” Connor said again. “I’m coming.” His feet felt like sandbags. His shoulders sagged and eyes sunk into his skull as he tried to move as smoothly as possible.

Down, at the end of the hall, was Rupert Travis’ room: room four-oh-three. Across the hallway, room four-oh-two’s door pounded to the rhythm of thrumming music. The beat pulsed against Connor’s skin, vibrating his bones, intensifying his sensitivities and setting his nerves on fire. Connor rubbed his eyes and rolled circles into his temples as he walked slowly, following Hank down the hallway.

Before Travis’ apartment, scattered across the floor, were pigeon feathers. Grey and white splatters of color over dull black wings, with a wingspan of approximately eighty centimeters.

They were large birds, larger than the average wingspan of seventy-two centimeters. Size differentiated from average when introduced to a growth stimulant of some form, outside of the normal consumption of food and the average release of growth hormones in the body. Connor knelt down before the feathers and picked one up, rolling the base between his fingertips.

“I believe these pigeons were pets.” Connor stated. Hank glanced down at him from where he stood leaning against the wall.

“Why’s that?” Hank asked.

Connor stood, passing the feather to Hank. Hank hesitantly plucked it from Connor’s grasp. “Because,” Connor began. “This pigeon’s wingspan is larger than the average wood pigeon’s. And it seems as if every pigeon in this area has a similar wingspan. When introduced with a foreign supplement of energy, things tend to grow at a faster and larger rate than the generalized average.”

“Like how when kids come to the U.S., eat our food, and then grow a lot?” Hank dropped the feather.

Connor nodded. “Similarly, yes.”

“So you think these rats with wings were getting fed human food?”

Connor nodded once again. “Correct.”

“All right.” Hank nudged his chin towards Travis’ door. “Well, let’s pay birdman a visit then…”

Connor took a step forward and knocked on the door. His knuckles scraped the wood and his head pounded with another headache. “Rupert Travis?” Connor called. “Anybody home?” Silence charred the air. He rubbed his ear on his shoulder before he closed his fists and slammed it against the door. The hinges rattled and screamed. “Open up! Detroit Police!”

A muffled crash cut through the quiet. From beside him, Hank drew his firearm and scowled. Connor glanced down at the gun – Smith and Wesson, point-forty-five caliber, black, safety still on – and reached for his own. He pushed his coat back, jerked the Glock from its holster, and pushed the safety back. The gun rested low, against his thigh, as he stared up at Hank for the first move.

Connor took a quick step back before he lurched forward, kicking the door in by the handle. It seized on the hinges, shaking like a leaf as it slammed against the side wall. Connor pushed forward, fumbling slightly in an exhausted daze.

More thumps followed. Connor neared the second door, one leading to a larger, more open area that the suspect was hiding in. He waited for Hank to reach the doorknob. Hank nodded to him, curt and quick, before he jerked the door open and Connor rushed forward.

Pigeons scurried around them, Connor’s vision a mess of grey and white color as wings flapped in his ears and squawking followed. Hank shrieked, “Fucking pigeons! Where the fuck did these fuckers come from! There’s got to be hundreds of them! _Fuck!_ ”

“Please calm yourself, lieutenant.” Connor clicked his safety on and holstered his gun. “There is no one here.”

The single, large room was empty. To Connor’s right, a closet – two feet deep by six feet long, with brown slotted doors for ventilating purposes – sat wide open and empty. The clothing inside was covered in feces, caked white onto the dark colored cloths. In front of him, the kitchen – marble counters, ash wood cabinets, with an empty fridge and underused sink, lacking a stove and microwave – was cluttered with boxes of bird food. Dozens of different brand boxes were pulled open and emptied.

Connor walked forward, shooing pigeons as he went, while Hank hovered in a nearby corner. “This is insane.” Hank whispered. “This is fucking insane.”

Connor glanced over his shoulder, at the lieutenant, and scanned him slowly. Shaking, folded arms, feet close together, eyes wide, pupils dilated, inconsistent rambling: all of which suggested, “Lieutenant, do you suffer from ornithophobia?”

Hank gawked at his prospect. “Why does that fucking matter?”

“Judging by your behavior and failure to not only clear the three rooms behind us in the hallway but also fail to begin investigating our current room, I assumed that the conclusion was relatively obvious.” Connor flinched as a pigeon fluttered past him. “Please wait outside. I will finish investigating the area.”

“No fucking way!” Hank howled. “I’m not going to let some ugly looking-ass birds scare me from a crime scene!”

“No crime has been committed here, lieutenant.” Connor stated. “This is simply the area of a suspected criminal. I am perfectly capable of handling this on my own.”

Hank squeezed his hands tight and curled further around his chest. “No can do, kid. If you need backup and the backup isn’t here to _back you up_ , then it’s my ass on the line.”

Connor blinked. “Very well.” He made his way to the bay window. His gaze jumped from the locks on the top to the ones on the bottom, noticing the lack of scuff marks and scrapes commonly found when one flees through a window. It was the only exit out of the disheveled room, save for the front door, which was obviously eliminated from possible escape routes. Connor hooked his fingers underneath the locks and popped them with difficulty – rusted, due to roughly twelve or more months of disuse – before he pried open the window. It wailed and only lifted seven inches before grinding to a halt.

Connor turned around. He glanced over the floorboards – hardwood floors, unpolished, approximately thirty to fifty years old due to wear, splintering, color, and gaps – and, while none caught his eye for hiding a possible escape route, there were a few that sported deep gashes. He followed the gapes until his gaze stopped at a chair – dark armchair, roughly two-hundred to two-hundred-fifty pounds total, made of walnut hardwood with a plywood frame – near the closet. It was dragged roughly fifteen feet before stopping in the awkward place.

Hank had wandered off into the hallway once again, likely to ease his nerves. Connor found his absence disturbingly frightening. He stood silently in the giant room, fiddling his fingers, itching for his coin. There were no bodies to analyze. There was hardly any evidence to accrue. There was, however, a high probably the suspect was hiding in the ceiling.

The chances of the suspect being able to see Connor was likely high, as he would watch to see until he and Hank had left. Connor, therefore, realized he could not draw his Glock. He could not call for Hank, either. And while the lieutenant would likely be a mere twenty steps away in the hallway, Connor could not take the chance of leaving his position to allow Travis to escape further into the ceiling or find a different route.

Connor stiffened. He hung his head and knelt low, as if examining something, as he listened. He slowed his breathing and drowned out his heartbeat. The pigeons fluttered around him. The wind howled outside. The boards of the apartment groaned as they expanded and contracted between the hot indoors and the wintry outdoors.

The ceiling popped.

A shuffle followed.

In a fluid movement, Connor drew his gun and pointed at the ceiling, firing two consecutive rounds. One in front of the sound, one to the right of the sound. He had to draw Travis out.

Hank burst through the door, gasping.

Connor watched as the lieutenant stared down at Connor then collapsed. A shadow fell on top of Hank, toppling the pair. The shadow – Rupert Travis, thirty-seven, approximately six foot tall and one-hundred-seventy pounds – bolted for the door.

Connor didn’t think. He moved. He leapt around Hank’s and shouldered through the apartment door. Connor rammed into the wall across the hallway, watching as Travis teetered, twisted, and pulled a shelf down behind him as he scurried for the rooftop door.

His legs already burned. His lungs already ached. Connor drowned it out. He ran forward, hopping over the shelving and stumbling through the door after Travis. Travis was already feet ahead of him, leaping over shiny ventilation pipes and metal tubing as he made for the ledge of the roof.

“Rupert Travis!” Connor called. “Stop! Or I will open fire!” He raised his gun.

Travis looked back before he vaulted the ledge.

Connor’s breath caught in his dry throat. He holstered the Glock, sprinted forward, and jumped, rolling smoothly onto the lower portion of the roof before bolting forward.

Amanda had trained him. Amanda had pushed him until he couldn’t move. Amanda had severed his ties to pain and fear and exhaustion and made him run until he dropped. Rupert Travis was no different.

He would run until he caught Travis or collapsed.

And he was willing to bet Travis would be the first to go down.

Travis ran for the brick wall leading to the next section of roof. He kicked off the ground and heaved himself up the wall with shaking arms. Connor’s eyes caught on a box nearby – approximately ten feet detoured from Travis’ track – and jumped up before flinging himself forward. His feet hit the top of the ledge and he rolled into his fall once again, breaking into a sprint as Rupert dove off another roof.

Connor followed, landing hard on glass ceiling. He skittered down, heart in his ears, lungs in his throat as he neared the edge – fifty foot drop, one-hundred-percent fatal if failed – and pushed off. He flailed, falling on the roof of a train.

Train.

They were on the metro, headed for downtown.

Travis had scrambled to his feet and ran across the slippery top of the train, making to jump off and onto another roof.

Connor could barely breathe. His vision blurred.

With a final feat of strength he rocketed forward and tackled Travis. They hit the steel train top hard, Connor wheezing, wind knocked from his chest, Travis scrambling to escape from under Connor’s hold. Connor pulled his pistol, straddling Travis. He could hear his own gasping over the whistling wind around them.

“Rupert Travis…” He stared Travis in the eyes – dark, black eyes, narrow and sharp and _angry_ – as he struggled to steady his shaking body. “You are under arrest for resisting arrest, assaulting an officer, evading police, tampering with evidence, and on accusation of selling the illegal substance known as red ice.” Connor’s hands shook as he pushed himself to his feet. Travis remained still, propped up on his elbows, glaring at Connor, seething, his face shaking and fists curled. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the--”

“RA-Nine, save me.” Travis whispered. He rolled sideways, off the edge of the train. His skull collided with the tracks – a sickening crack – before his body flipped down another twenty feet and landed on the concrete below.

Connor stared, wide-eyed, mouth open as he panted, shaking.

His legs caved below him and he dropped to his knees.

Distantly, he noticed Hank running to the ledge of the rooftop from which he had previously jumped. He kicked a fire escape ladder and motioned Connor forward. The train neared the ladder quickly and, without thought, Connor jumped, sweaty palms slipping on the steel rungs.

“Come here, kid! I got you!” Hank’s warm hands curled around Connor’s arms as he half-lifted Connor up the fire escape and dragged him to the safety of flat ground. “God damn, you’re fast.”

Connor shivered with exertion. “Not fast…enough…” He gasped.

“Yeah, well, you’re like a walking corpse so that’s to be expected.” Hank still clung to Connor’s coat. Connor felt numb. He sluggishly realized he was being touched and made to squirm away but Hank moved first, pushing himself up onto his feet and pulling Connor up as well from under the arms. “Jesus, that was intense. I didn’t think that fucker was in the apartment. I shouldn’t have left.”

“I should have been faster.” Connor repeated. He tilted backwards. Hank grabbed his coat front and yanked him forwards, back onto his unsteady feet.

“You were fast. You did catch him. I saw it.” Hank puffed out air. “Nobody could have known the little shit would commit suicide. There was no way of knowing.”

Connor could barely speak. He didn’t know _what_ to speak. “I…We need to…We need to call dispatch.” Connor looked around slowly. Everything was too bright and too dark at the same time. He felt sweat roll down his spine and he cringed. “We need to call it in…”

“Already did.” Hank folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s get out of here. CFR can handle this. Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Connor’s voice trembled as much as he did. “We need to complete our reports.”

“We’re getting lunch and then you’re hitting the hay. I can finish the reports. Hell, you’re the one that ran a mini-marathon across the rooftops. I just jogged a bit.” Hank smiled sourly. “Let’s get out of here. Place stinks.” Connor nodded grimly and followed Hank back, back across the rooftops, back to the elevator, back, weaving between first responders and medical teams and red and blue lights, back into the safety of Hank’s car.

Connor curled into the leather seat, his gaze dipping in and out of focus as he stared ahead with half-lidded eyes. Hank jerked the gear back and pulled the car away from the curb and onto the streets. Hank began talking, speaking low in a hushed voice about the case, but Connor couldn’t recall a single word as his eyes slipped shut and he drifted off.

 

 

 

_August 15 2018 – 20:29.17_

_188 Dearborn Road_

_Zlatko Andronikov's House – Nightmarish_

“The first responder’s here. Fall back.”

Connor’s body moved on its own. He felt like a ghost, like a stranger under his own skin, strung to his body by an invisible tether that strangled him as he was dragged along. He couldn’t smell the earthy brown of the hardwood around him. He couldn’t hear his own footsteps as they made the floors creak. He couldn’t feel the stifling heat around him or the cold sweat that beaded on his forehead and palms.

He could hardly breathe.

All he was was sight. He saw the charred patterns in the wood posts, curling up to the ceiling. He saw the stairs to the basement. He saw the white walls and the white floors and the white room that was bathed in red. He saw Alice, lying face down, eyes empty. He saw Kara, screaming, begging, crying and kicking and flailing before she hit the floor with a underwhelming thump as Zlatko reeled backwards from the bullet lodged in his brain.

He saw it all in seconds. His body was still walking down the stairs.

Kara’s shrieking ripped through his senses. He heard her screams, tasted her desperation, felt her shaking in Connor’s arms as he pulled her off the bloody floor and cradled her close.

 

 

 

_November 17 2018 – 12:37.18_

_Location – Unknown_

_Chicken Feed Food Truck – Unknown Purpose_

The car jerked to a stop and Connor shook awake slowly. He took a careful breath, scared to taste the smoke and blood, and opened his eyes. To his left, Hank said quietly, “Welcome back. I’m getting some lunch. And so are you.”

Connor’s brain paddled along Hank’s words until he comprehended them. “I…I’m not hungry…”

“I know.” Hank said. “But my dog is heavier than you, so let’s go eat.” He reached for his door handle. “It’ll make you feel better. Let’s go.”

 “How long was I asleep…?” Connor mumbled. He noticed the unsteady pattering of rain hitting the car. Realization came to him quickly and he shuddered. The rain was loud and heavy. The leather under him was too hot and too cold all at once.

“Half an hour, maybe. Why?” Hank answered. He popped his door open. “Come on, kid. Let’s go.” The lieutenant disappeared into the drizzle – Connor reeled; the rain was not heavy at all and his brain hurt as everything became over-sensitized – and towards the bright yellow food truck.

Connor’s legs hesitated to work. He willed them to and he stumbled out of the vehicle.

Hank wandered towards a tall table, two grease-splotched boxes in each of his hands and sodas tucked close to his chest by his arm. He set the foods down and waved Connor forward hastily. Connor crossed the street without thought – he should have looked back and forth, he knew, but he couldn’t will himself to – and stopped before the table.

He glanced over the opened boxes – cheeseburgers: fatty red meat, lettuce, bacon four slices, tomato two slices, mayonnaise, unidentified brown sauce, unidentified yellow sauce, too thin to be mustard – and cringed. “That appears to be unhealthy, lieutenant.” he said. “I’m not sure we should be eating that.”

“Get your ass over here and eat. You haven’t all day, have you?” Hank thrummed his fingers against the tabletop.

Connor pinched his brows together. “I…was not hungry earlier, either.”

“Yeah, well, you know that that’s bad for you, right?”

“I am aware, lieutenant. Skipping a meal within the first hours of waking slows metabolism and increases blood pressure, despite the assumption that it promotes weight loss.” Connor said smoothly. He was surprised his own voice wasn’t shaking with exertion. He couldn’t tear his eyes off of the burger, however, and stalked forward, his fingers stopping over the meal. “But…I suppose I could…try it.”

Hank picked up his food and crammed a large portion into his mouth. “Give it a shot, kiddo.” he said, mouth full, barely comprehensible.

Connor peeled the bun back and began to scrape off the mystery sauces and mayonnaise with a napkin. He stripped the patty of the slimy bacon and the strangely milky tomatoes before he decided to rid himself of the lettuce, too. Hank watched patiently before he took another bite and asked, “Don’t like burgers?”

“I haven’t eaten one in over a decade. They are, unfortunately, quite unhealthy and, while training me, Amanda insisted on a healthy diet of vegetables, fruits, white meats, and whole grains. This meal undermines my normal food habits. But…”

“But?” Hank took a third bite. His burger was over halfway finished.

“But, seeing as how I am… _quite_ hungry, I suppose one meal of unhealthy eating won’t be too disastrous for my physique.”

Hank chewed slowly. “Kid, you’re one of the most in-shape people I’ve ever met.” He threw his burger to the left as he gesticulated heavily. “You’re just chased a guy going like…ten miles per hour across rooftops and shit.”

Connor took a hesitant bite, ripping the meat and bun away between his teeth. He tasted nothing but grease and grime and sweet white bread. He regretted it but swallowed nonetheless, desperate for food as his stomach growled. “This is repulsive.” Connor murmured.

“Then stop eating.” Hank said.

Connor took another bite. He forced himself to swallow around the fatty taste.

Hank’s head teetered back as he finished off his meal. He clapped his hands clean of crumbs. “So, what’s up. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Connor frowned. “It does not concern this investigation, lieutenant.”

“Yeah, but it does. Because you’re not sleeping which means you’re not doing things the way you’re supposed to be doing. So it kind of _does_ , doesn’t it?”

Hank was right. Connor knew Hank was right. The burger in his mouth soured. “I…I have been compromised, I believe.” Connor began. “I have been suffering from emotional instability for the past few months, and while it has greatly disappointed Amanda, it has also severely disappointed me. I cannot help but feel that I have become a detriment to this case. Amanda…she…she _will_ deem this a failure. And if I fail…”

“Okay, but forget Amanda for a second.” Hank said.

Connor gaped. “Pardon?”

“Forget Amanda for a second. Just a second. Tell me what’s going on with you. What do _you_ feel? What’s up with _you_?”

“I am…tired.” The words didn’t feel real. He didn’t feel his mouth moving. He didn’t feel the cogs in his brain working. For once, Connor felt bare and open to the world as he spoke on instinct, leaving nothing to be filtered by manners and social etiquette. “I am tired, lieutenant. In a literal sense, I have been deprived of the average eight hours of sleep nightly for many months. But in a metaphorical sense, I…I feel…Well, I am not sure. I do not quite have the adequate vocabulary to determine exactly _what_ I feel.”

Hank looked grim and grey. “You’re not suicidal, are you?” The question was blunt and hard. It made Connor uncomfortable. The connotation itself was depressing and, while Connor had never contemplated the need to take his own life, he knew many often did and, sometimes, would lose their inner battles. The idea of being so out-of-control with oneself, to not be able to survive from one’s own mind, frightened Connor.

“I am not, lieutenant.” Connor looked down at his burger and fidgeted with it between his fingers. Hank stilled. His eyes darkened as Connor hesitantly continued, “However, I cannot forgo the thought that, perhaps, you are.”

Hank slammed an invisible wall down between himself and Connor. The barrier was static and fuzzy and burned the nerves in Connor’s eyes. Connor felt shame, suddenly, as if he had seen something sinful. Something repulsive. Something he was not ever supposed to lay witness to. He rocked slightly where he stood. “I…I apologize, lieutenant. I…That was unprofessional of me. I should have consulted my book, as it states that I should avoid emotional situations, as they become--”

“Your what?” Hank mumbled.

“My book.” Connor repeated quickly. He welcomed the distraction from the painful statement he had made. “It is an educational and advising read on how autistic persons should approach certain situations that they would normally fail to comprehend naturally.” Connor regurgitated the words Amanda told him, once. The words were poison on his tongue. It burned to say them again. Something felt wrong. Her words, for once, felt _wrong._ “As autistic people cannot safely maneuver many situations on their own, they must consult a guide in order to ask correct questions, access proper information, and speak with proper respect and mannerisms. I was born without the capability to do so. Therefore, I must consult the book whenever driven into a social situation.”

“Who told you that?” Hank asked. “Who said you can’t think for yourself?”

“I am perfectly capable of thinking for myself, lieutenant.” Connor said defensively. “And Amanda instructed--”

“She’s a bitch, you know that, right?” Hank scowled. “She’s an absolute cun--”

“ _Lieutenant_ ,” Connor said sharply, “While some believe that she is unpleasant, one cannot deny that her teachings--”

Hank held up his hand. “Connor. Stop. Listen to yourself for a second, all right? Just listen to what you’re saying. You’re making yourself out to be stupid. You’re acting like you’re…like you’re…”

“Like I am mentally handicapped?” Connor prodded at the sensitive situation. It was almost as if Hank hated Connor as he undermined himself. It was as if the man cared. “Because I am, lieutenant. Your partner is not as intelligent as yourself when it comes to social nuances or the simplicities of communication. I was made for one task and one task only: complete the mission.”

“She fucked you up real good, didn’t she…” Hank wilted. He aged within seconds, more than the alcohol or exhaustion ever drained him. “You might be… _different_ , but that doesn’t make you stupid. Doesn’t mean you need some book written by a guy who’s got a broom shoved up his ass. Doesn’t mean you’re some kind of…of… _machine_. You talk like you’re a fucking machine, Connor. Who says ‘made’ anyway? You were _born_ , not _made_.”

“I…” Connor stumbled over a simple prospect, one Amanda had disregarded entirely. She had told him to shove it away, and forget about ever asking it again. She had taught him to think around it and do what he was told. She had told him many things and, for the first time, Connor wanted to break her teachings. “I…Lieutenant, I…Do you truly believe that I am capable of being equal to you?”

Hank’s jaw dropped to the table. He looked genuinely shocked and hurt, as if Connor had insinuated that _he_ was of lesser value, not Connor himself. “Of course, Connor. Jesus Christ, what did that lady tell you?”

“The truth.” Connor said simply. He felt unstable. He desperately wanted to go back to the car, to run away and retreat from such sensitive, vulnerable topics. No, but they could not be sensitive. Amanda had taught him to desensitize himself. “I am inferior when it comes to anything but what pertains to the investigation. That is why Amanda created me.”

“You’re not a machine, Connor.”

Connor stiffened. “Some would believe otherwise, lieutenant.”

They both knew who. They both knew Amanda’s name rolled under Connor’s tongue. They both knew Amanda had driven something deep within Connor’s skull, a whisper, something he was forced to live by. They both knew. It hurt. Connor dropped his half-eaten burger back into the box and wiped his hands clean. They still felt disgusting and slimy.

“Well you’re not.” Hank said. “You eat like a person. You sleep like a person. You need and want things like a person and you feel things like a person. So, just, be nicer to yourself, okay? Have some self-respect.”

Self-respect. Amanda, it seemed, had taught him to not respect himself according to Hank’s regards. She had taught him to be something less than a self, less than a person.

She had taught him to obey. Like a submissive. Like a robot.

Like a _machine_.

Connor’s head hurt. Everything hurt. He felt warmth prick the corners of his eyes. “I’ll let you finish your meal, lieutenant.” He turned away. Quickly. Hank couldn’t see him. “I’ll be in the car.” He safely crossed the road in a rush and, as he slammed the car door closed, he felt a barrier snap inside him. The tears started and wouldn’t stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Yo...guys...I'm fucking TIRED. My work has me doing double shifts since my co-worker's boyfriend just found out he had stage four cancer so...like...I'M BUSY. S H I T.
> 
> Thank you everyone for sticking with me. Seriously. I appreciate the hell out of it. Truly. Like...I wouldn't be here without you guys and your support and I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I was writing in-between classes and work and homework but there was like, no time at all.
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you thank you. You are all so amazing. All couple thousand of you. Jesus fuck that's a lot of people haha.
> 
> Anyway, I was wondering something, if you wouldn't mind letting me know.
> 
> So I'm trying this thing out, let me know if it's working. I'm trying to slowly integrate from writing as if Connor is writing (ie analytically and logically (from chapter one or two)) and slowly turning it into my writing (ie more fluid and metaphorical with more similes and shit (starting from chapters three and four and on)). Are you seeing that? Am I even doing what I think I'm doing? Or is there no transition at all and there's just a jarring analytical to melodic writing style? Of course, you won't see my full writing style until we reach the last few chapters, but how is it turning out so far?
> 
> I guess, another way to look at it is watching Connor's story progress from analytical and machine-like to melodic and human-like? Do you guys get what I'm asking? It's cool if you don't and you don't have to answer but I was just wondering your take on the matter? Because I'm learning new writing things and testing writing things out as I'm going so...who knows...this is lowkey just a test on my own writing capabilities.
> 
> Anyway, it's late, I'm rambling, I have to be up in a few hours at five AM so...I'm going to go pass out now. Goodnight. Or goodday. Or whatever. Later! And thanks for sticking with me!
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	7. Russian Roulette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_17 November 2018 – 13:3303_

_1777 3 rd Avenue [9th Floor, Room No. 908]_

_The Grande Hotel – Temporary Living Quarters_

Connor assumed that he was likely experiencing what some called an “existential crisis”. He was far too young to be in the midst of a “mid-life crisis” – something that he found odd and rather cumbersome, as any living being must know it will die eventually and, thus, there is no need for a crisis when one has reached the halfway point of their lives – but he certainly did not feel normal.

His cheeks still burned bright, brighter than when Hank had jerked the car door open on him choking and fighting back tears. He had apologized, mortified, repeating, “I’ll walk home, I’ll walk home”, but Hank had insisted on driving him back the mile to his hotel.

As the car pulled up to the hotel slowly, cautiously, Connor willed himself to sit as still as possible. He closed his eyes and begged his heart to stop thrumming too fast, begged his hands to stop shaking, just for a moment so he could gather his bearings.

Hank jerked the stick back and glanced over at Connor as the vehicle lurched into a stop. After a pregnant pause, he said, “Just talk to me, kid.”

“I am fine, lieutenant.” Connor straightened, self-consciousness burning his cheeks. He rubbed his face, his skin reddening as he scrubbed at the tear-tracks once again. “I appreciate the drive back to my hotel. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Why were you…you know…” Connor stilled, halfway out of his seat, door propped open.

“It does not affect the investigation.” Connor said.

Hank launched forward against the steering wheel, staring Connor down, down into his bones. “Like hell it doesn’t! I’m over there trying to eat my _fucking lunch_ and you’re sitting in _my_ car crying your _fucking eyes_ out! So _like hell_ it doesn’t because if you’re losing your cool _I need to know!_ ”

“May I inquire you as to why you must know, lieutenant.” Connor rolled his coin in his hand. He fixated on the grooves and the texture, the cold, as per usual, but it felt oddly mundane. As if it were becoming intolerable to his constant fidgeting. As if he was becoming used to it. As if they were becoming tired of one another. “I don’t see the purpose of knowing my mental state when it pertains to this investigation.”

“ _Bullshit_.” Hank said loudly. Connor flinched. “You know why it matters. You know, I _know_ you know. It’s because if you’re sick, you need a break. It’s because if you’re not on your A-game, I can’t do _shit_. So tell me again, Dechart, _why does it not pertain to the fucking investigation_?”

Connor’s ears burned with embarrassment. “This discussion is not necessary.” It was not. He was lying. He wanted to scream at himself, throttle himself, tell himself to stop lying and tell the truth.

The truth…

…Connor didn’t even know what that truth was.

He just knew he needed to say it.

“You’re sick.” Hank snipped. “Mentally ill. Whatever you want to call it. Amanda’s fucked you up, and now _you’re_ paying the price, _I’m_ paying the price, this _investigation_ ’s paying the price.”

“She has not.” He snapped.

But had she?

Connor continued, “She has trained me to complete my mission. And I will. That is all.”

Hank scoffed. “Yeah, and her training’s getting you killed. How do you not see that? This is… _You’re getting yourself killed_.”

“Incorrect.” Connor hissed. “This is irrelevant. We need to return to the precinct. I need to finish my paperwork.”

“Get the _fuck_ out of the car, Connor. Get out. Go upstairs. Sleep.”

Connor wheezed around the brick of tension building under his throat. “I do not need sleep, lieutenant. I need to complete this case. I need to finish this case for my reputation and my wellbeing, just as you do. I suspect that is why you are so eager to close this case as well. For personal gain?”

Hank’s gaze went wild. “The fuck are you talking about.”

“Your son, Cole Anderson. This has something to do with _him_ , doesn’t it. Do you want to close this case so badly because something happened to him whilst you were investigating? Or perhaps is it because you cannot stand my presence. Do I remind you of him, lieutenant? Do I remind you of your son? Is that why you do not want me on this case? Because you cannot tell _fantasy from fact_?”

Hank raised his hand. Connor jerked back. He saw Kamski’s fist. He saw Amanda’s claws. The lieutenant curled his hand into a pointed finger and he jabbed it at Connor’s chest. “Listen, you little _shit_. I’m trying to _help_ you, because I _get it_. I get that you’re overwhelmed. I get that you’re way in over your head. I get that you’re sleeping just about as much as I am. _I get it_.” Hank’s chest rose and fell with seething anger. “Do _not_ , under any circumstances, _ever_ bring up Cole again. Do _not_. Learn your boundaries, _boy_. Do you understand?”

Connor chewed on the words. He managed to grind out, “Understood, lieutenant.”

“Good.” Hank turned the car back on. “Now get out. Do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t give a shit.”

Connor pushed himself out of the car and into the sudden white November cold. Sleet pelted his shoulders and drizzled down his back and he rolled his shoulders and marched forward, scowling, cursing Detroit and its inconsistent weather as he went.

The elevator ride up to the ninth floor was pitifully uneventful and Connor’s mind begged for something to do, something to chase. Without the lieutenant, he was unable to access any files given to the Detroit Police. Without the lieutenant, he couldn’t visit crime scenes and investigate evidence in the locker. Without the lieutenant, he was _disgustingly_ helpless, like a writhing, wailing infant.

Connor shook with aged anger, a storm unleashing, one that had been buried for years. He shoved his quarter into his pocket and ripped at his hair. Clumps of thin strands followed and he tossed them aside. The elevator stopped and Connor stumbled out. Whooshing roared in his ears. Everything became blinding, thunderous, his sense of touch numbed and voice muted.

He felt like he was drowning in emotions, overwhelmed by the invisible sources of pain, barbed wires coiling around his organs, puncturing them like needles to balloons. As he dropped to the floor of his room, slamming the door shut, he gasped sharply, dry heaving as he gagged and coughed up nothing. The hotel room was silent. It was deafening Connor couldn’t breathe. He willed himself to comply to his body’s hungering for air, for ease, and he worked himself into comfort as he slowly rocked, arms on his knees, knees to his chest, head resting between them.

Connor’s emotions confused him. Emotions hurt like no physical pain, leaving him writhing and begging for a semblance of mercy. As he tugged on his hair and pulled at his scalp, wanting nothing more than to bash his head against a wall and knock himself out cold, some called him “self-injurious”. Some called him “a hazard” to himself. Connor simply called it a desire to forget. He wanted to abolish emotions. He wanted nothing more than to stop being the butt of the joke that he just couldn’t get no matter how hard he tried.

Chloe, once, not long ago, had suggested meditation. After a particularly grueling session with Amanda, leaving him exhausted both in mind and body, ragged and panting like a dog, she had sat him down, eyes brighter than her soft smile, and said, “Why don’t we try something I do to calm down, all right?”

“As our psychological standpoints are opposing, Chloe. I do not think your methodology will adequately coincide with my mindset.” Connor had said, cringing to himself. He had hated talking monotonously to Chloe – someone he had trusted, someone who had gotten as close to a love as he could get – but, after Amanda, he had forgotten to turn it off. “I…I…”

“Relax.” Chloe had beamed. “I want you to take a deep breath, okay?”

Connor had nodded. He had nodded until his head felt heavy and Chloe had gripped his chin lightly between her thumb and forefinger – she could touch him, nobody else, she was always allowed to touch him – and she had watched, giggling, as his eyes trailed away from her own gaze and to her mouth. “All right, just relax. Take a deep breath through your nose, and hold for a few moments.” Chloe had closed her eyes and inhaled. Even that had sounded melodic to Connor’s sore ears.

Initially, Connor had tried. He had pushed his consciousness into a floating-like contentment and sighed softly. But the air had not come. The ease had not followed. Within seconds, he had begun fidgeting and shifting. Chloe had cracked her eyes opened, a smooth grin on her lips. “You all right?”

Connor had, curtly, said, “No. I am not.”

The suddenness had made Chloe’s expression wilt. “Connor…”

“I…I am tired. And I do not feel…normal.” Connor had begun. “I do not understand what I am feeling but I don’t want to be feeling it any longer. How can I turn them off, Chloe? My emotions. How can I turn them off?”

Chloe had crumpled. Her face had slackened and she had tightened her fist against the material of her white dress. “That’s unhealthy, Connor. You know that.”

“’Page seventy-seven, paragraph four: repression, while a common tactic amongst autistic peoples, can regress the progress made to integrate into society, wherein comprehension of one’s emotions will likely become a benefactor, however stressful, for all parties involved, allowing one to excel with networking relationships, socioeconomic statuses, and workplace functions.’” Connor had taken a deep breath. “I know that. But I still do not…like them. I do not understand their purpose.”

Chloe had shifted a bit closer and took his hands in her own. Connor had glanced down, watching as her soft skin kneaded through the knots of stress under his palms. Her fingers were small and petite and pale, like a doll’s, rubbing circles over Connor’s callouses and scars. Chloe had said, silkily, “Then let me help you. I will _always_ help you…”

Connor scrambled across the hotel room floor, snagging his phone from the nightstand and shakily typing in Chloe’s number. He could barely see, let alone talk. As the phone rang its numb dial tone, Connor cleared his throat, coughed up more tears, and waited. He rocked harder. His spine tapped the wall with every pitch his body made.

“Connor?” Connor melted at the sound of her voice. He gasped. Chloe’s words sang like Spring birdsongs, swelling his already swollen heart. “How are you? You hadn’t called when you first arrived, and I was getting a little worried. Are you all right?”

He swallowed a knot. “I…I need your help.” His voice sounded weak and he grimaced at the pathetic situation. “Please Chloe please. Please. I…it’s an episode…please _help me_ \--”

“Deep breath.” Chloe cut through his words, a gold light in the blackness. Connor breathed in. “Relax, Connor. We’re going to do the exercise, okay? The exercise. Now, tell me what you see.”

“B-Bed.” Connor stumbled. “The nightstand. The window…” He shuddered. “Dresser. My hand…my hand is shaking, Chloe.”

“Tell me what you hear, Connor.”

Connor closed his eyes. “You. I hear you.”

“And what else?” Chloe prompted.

“Cars. Outside, there are cars. And a siren. It’s an ambulance…” He waited patiently for more sounds. He heard nothing. “My heart. My breathing.”

“And what do you feel?”

“The carpet. It’s scratchy. I have rugburn on my arm, Chloe. I was trying to get to the phone…” He focused. He willed himself to focus. “I feel my clothes. And my heart. I feel my heart. It’s…It hurts…”

“It’s okay. Just tell me what you smell, Connor.”

Connor took a lungful of air. “Cleaner. From the bathroom, when the housekeepers tidied the rooms for me. And my aftershave from earlier this morning.”

“Good. And how about taste? What do you taste?” Connor could hear Chloe’s breathing slow down. Her voice lightened, as if she exhaled a stale breath.

“I taste mint. From my toothpaste…”

Chloe hummed. “Good. Now take another breath. Slow. Nice and easy.” Connor complied. She said, “And again.” Connor complied once more. His body weakened, nerves still tingling. “And one more time.” Connor turned to jelly against the wall, a mushy pile of ragged breaths and shaky, clammy skin. He blinked wearily.

“I’m okay…” he whispered. “I’m okay…”

“Connor,” Chloe began. “Why don’t you come back home. This is unhealthy for you. I…I still advise against it. Strongly.”

Connor’s heart hammered once, nice and hard, square in the center of his chest like a punch. “I’m okay.” He loosened his tie with his free hand, pulling it from under the collar of his shirt. “But you have to report this, don’t you?”

Chloe’s end of the line went silent. Connor scrunched his toes. “You have to tell Amanda about me calling you, don’t you, Chloe…”

After a long moment, Chloe murmured, “Connor…Just breathe.”

“I understand.” Connor hung his head. “It’s your job. It would be unprofessional for me to condemn you to noncompliance for my personal gains.” The sudden need to hold her made Connor’s chest cave in. He wanted to feel her warmth, her soft curves and, as he took a breath, he wanted to smell nothing but her. He hated the intimacy of touch, the social complexity of holding a hand or brushing a shoulder. But with Chloe, everything became natural. An underlying ‘something’ became simple and nothing. She never made anything complex out of a gesture or a movement.

He hated being touched. He hated touching. But Chloe was a painful exception. An exception to a rule he established the day he was able to talk. He ground his heels into the dirt with his regulations; “do not make eye contact with me, do not toy with me, do not make loud noises around me, do not overstimulate me, do not touch me…”

Chloe was a strange exception.

“Connor--”

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to see her. He wanted to look her in the eyes for only a split second. That second would last him weeks, the bright blue becoming his sky and the flecks of green becoming his ground which he stood. He wanted Chloe.

But he couldn’t have Chloe. A bitter reality. Something that made him want to scream with frustration every time it passed his psyche. He had Chloe, but not in the way he wanted to have her. He wanted to see her smile without boundaries. He wanted to be with her without demands from the outside world.

He couldn’t have that…

“I shouldn’t have called.” Connor blurted out. He surprised himself and winced. “I…My apologies. I shouldn’t have called you at such a…strange time…”

“No, I’m glad you did.” A breath. “I miss you.” Another breath. “I _really_ miss you, Connor. And now that you’re…that you’re _not_ well, and I know you’re not, I just…I just want to be there, with you. And I know you don’t like to be touched when you’re hurting but I just…” Chloe made a small sound over the phone, as if she were choking on tears. “I just want to take it away. I want to take the hurt away from you and just…God, I don’t know. I just…I need to know that you’ll come home.”

Connor didn’t know where ‘home’ was anymore. Amanda had been his home for a long time, raising him to perfection, building him up and breaking his supports to rebuild and rebuild until he was what she wanted. Long ago, his parents were his home. They cooed and ushered him to safe places during his primitive years, guiding him into a gentle world.

The world was not gentle. His parents were dead. Emotions hurt. Amanda…

…Connor didn’t understand Amanda. Her intentions, while clear, hurt. Just as a beating from Kamski hurt, and just as his emotions had hurt, Amanda had hurt.

He had followed her teachings. He had put her tactics to use. He had done as she said.

Connor didn’t understand why it _hurt_.

Who was Amanda to him? Really? Who was she at all?

“I want to go home. I want to go see you again. Casually, of course. I want to see you…” Connor’s thoughts trailed away. “But I have to finish my mission. That’s all that matters right now.”

Chloe sighed lightly. “Your mission is doing you harm, Connor.”

“I can do it.”

“I’m not doubting that. But you need to be careful. You’re _fragile_ \--”

“Because I’m autistic.” It wasn’t a question. His words bit her.

“Because you went through a traumatic experience.” Chloe rectified. Connor huffed bitterly and Chloe continued, “It’s not uncommon for those who have gone through a traumatic experience, Connor. They’re often left with severe cases of PTSD or depression. Some may even have survivor’s guilt. They may become suicidal, even…”

“I’m not suicidal.” Connor said much too quickly. He sounded like a liar.

Was he?

“I never said you were.” Chloe snipped. “I want you to be careful because you matter to me, Connor.”

Connor said, before he realized, “That’s unprofessional.”

“What?”

“To be in a romantic relationship with one of your patients is…that’s unprofessional…” He wanted to swallow the words as soon as he said them. He wanted to devour them and grind them into miniscule pieces and choke them down even if they suffocated him. “I…I apologize. Again. I…that came out…incorrectly…”

Silence loomed. For a moment, Connor thought she had hung up.

“I hope you feel better, Connor.” Chloe whispered. “I know you like your privacy when you are frustrated. Call back soon, all right?” The line cut. Connor dropped the phone, his hand still raised to his head. His fingers snagged his hair once again and he jerked his head left, onto his shoulder.

Connor heard nothing.

The cars had stopped. His breathing slowed into silence. The ambulances had come and gone and he was dipped into a suspended stillness that snapped at his nerves and exhausted him. He felt stretched and weak, his muscles watery and porous and draining him of all the strength he had left.

Chloe…had she hated him as well?

He had driven Hank away after overstepping delicate boundaries. He had disappointed Amanda time after time. Kamski didn’t trust him. Chloe…

…Chloe hated him, now.

Connor slumped low against the wall, breathing shallow. He struggled to keep his eyes opened. His lids fluttered shut and he drifted off.

 

 

 

_23 June 2009 - 15:05.44_

_Langley, Virginia_

_Practice Room - Bad_

“Do you remember my name?”

Connor tightened his back, straightening his posture. “Kamski. Elijah Kamski.”

Kamski slipped around Connor, his hands in a loose finger-lock behind his back. He glanced down at Connor, studying him silently, before he stopped and turned in front of him and raised his chin high. Even in his young age, Connor could see his overcompensation. His egotistical muse. “How long have you been with Amanda, Connor?”

“Eight years.” Connor answered.

Kamski raised his eyebrows. “Only eight years? And she’s already submitting you to _me_?”

“Correct.”

“Interesting.” Kamski shuffled forward and pulled open the side of Connor’s jacket, digging through the inside pockets, patting down the sides of his torso. Connor stiffened until his muscles burned. Kamski grinned down at him as he asked, “And she has taught you, what, exactly?”

Connor listed his capabilities like manifesto from a new car, “Hand-to-hand combat, secondary combat, knife combat, gun control and combat, defensive disarming technique, interrogation technique, sociopsychological manipulation technique, armed manipulation technique, investigation analysis, forensic identification analysis, crime scene reconstruction, crime scene deconstruction, crime scene forensic analysis--”

“Enough.” Kamski removed his hands. Connor swallowed the urge to throw up at the man’s unwarranted touch. “I would like a demonstration, Connor.”

Connor watched Kamski’s mouth move. He watched his lips and stared at the flashes of brown coffee staining in the crevices of his teeth. Kamski disgusted him. “A demonstration of what, Mr. Kamski?”

“Look at me.” Kamski snapped.

Connor disobeyed. His eyes were fixated on Kamski’s stained, straight teeth.

“Look. At. Me.”

“I am unable to comply.” Connor rushed.

Kamski closed in. He was broader than Connor, and overall, larger, despite Connor having the slight advantage of height even in his teenage years. Nonetheless, Connor felt boxed in. Air didn’t reach his lungs and he hiccupped.

“Does it make you uncomfortable, Connor?” Kamski poked.

Connor nodded.

Kamski hummed. “Connor, tell me: do you know where I work…?”

Connor’s breath shook. “The FBI.”

“And do you know what it is I do at the FBI?”

“Persuasive information extraction.” Connor whispered. “Torture.”

Kamski whistled loudly. “Torture is a _strong_ word, Connor. You sure you want to use it?” His words were hot and angry but a smile slithered onto his lips as he continued. “I ask questions, and I get answers. That is my specialty. However, Amanda did not bring me here to intimidate you, Connor. Nor did she bring me here to…as you say, ‘torture’ you. No…”

Connor sucked in a gulp of air. He squeezed his hands until crescents of pain bit his palms where his fingernails dug deep.

“I am here to test you, Connor.” Kamski said softly. “I am here to accurately gauge your skills. You see, Amanda is under the impression she has created my equal. You are to surpass me one day, Connor. Do you think that it’s possible? Do you think that you could surpass me one day?”

Connor didn’t move.

Kamski asked again, shallowly, “Do you think that you could ever surpass me…?”

Connor blinked. His leg buzzed. Kamski closed a fist. It hurtled towards Connor.

 

 

 

_17 November 2018 – 23:29.28_

_1777 3 rd Avenue [9th Floor, Room No. 908]_

_The Grande Hotel – Temporary Living Quarters_

Connor jerked awake. His neck burned, coiling tightly, tension bleeding up into his skull. His breaths caught up to him quickly and, after a moment, the world slowed. Everything fell into stride. He slackened against the wall. The room was dark, thrown into the cover of late night. Small orange lights bled in through the drawn curtains, stabbing him in the eyes. He squinted and grimaced.

To his right, against his thigh, his phone vibrated anxiously, Perkins’ number flashing on screen. The top left-hand corner read half-past eleven in the evening. Connor rubbed his eyes. He felt like he was asleep for ten years, not ten hours.

Ten hours.

_Gone._

Lost to a nightmare.

Lost to _Kamski_ , of all people. Connor lip curled.

Connor swiped the phone and pushed it against his ear. “Agent Dechart speaking.”

_“Hey Dechart, it’s Richard. We’ve got another lead.”_

Connor felt himself deflate. “Understood.”

 _“You sleeping?”_ Perkins asked. _“You sound like shit.”_

“I am obviously awake, agent Perkins.” Connor mumbled. He flicked on the room light. The world blinded him. “Text me the address to the location. I will arrive as quickly as possible.”

 _“Hey, you’ve got to pick up Anderson.”_ Perkins said.

“Pardon?” Connor brain wasn’t yet awake. He struggled. “Where is the lieutenant?”

_“No idea. I’ve left him two voice mails, Gavin’s left another four, but he’s not picking up. Run by and grab him and meet us at the Eden Club downtown. Got it?”_

“Affirmative.” Connor hung up the phone, blinked the sleep from his eyes, and slipped out the door again.

 

 

 

_17 November 2018 – 23:49.11_

_162 Austin Street_

_Hank's House - Unknown Status_

Halfway to Hank’s house, Connor realized he had forgotten his tie. Standing outside, greeted by freezing rain and icy winds, Connor realized that he was, too, missing his fuzzy winter jacket. He curled into his sports coat as it whipped across his body, the wind carving holes into his exposed skin.

Connor rushed forward and under the shelter of Hank’s awning – common red clay brick, two-and-a-half stones wide by roughly sixty stones tall – and jabbed his finger into the doorbell. A gnawing buzz followed and Connor shrunk lower, squinting.

He heard a deep bark – _Sumo_ , he had a dog named Sumo – and loud curses. Stumbling followed, then stomping, and as the door rocketed open, Connor flinched back from both the stench of the alcohol and the disheveled appearance of the lieutenant. Sporting a stained grey tee and striped boxers, Hank appeared more drunken than sober, a drool creeping down his lip, his eyes sagging and sunken and his posture slouched.

“The fuck--?” Hank slurred. “The fuck you doing here? Am I dead yet?”

“Fortunately, no, lieutenant.” Connor stifled a shiver. “M-May I come inside?”

Hank’s face remained stony. “No.”

Connor blanched. “Pardon me?”

“I said _no_ , you _asshole_.” Hank burped gracelessly. “Last I fucking checked, I’m in this shithole situation because of _you_ , so fuck the _fuck off_.”

“H-How am I to be held responsible for your alcoholism, lieutenant?” Connor’s voice wavered in the wind. He struggled to speak loud enough without cracking his composure. “It is a-approximately fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, and I would v-very, _very_ much like to step inside.”

“I said no.”

“I asked politely.”

Hank chomped his teeth before he side-stepped, albeit uncoordinated, and Connor rushed forward. Heat blasted his ashy, snow-whipped skin. He breathed heavy and rubbed feeling back into his hands and arms. He found himself inside the foyer of the house, where wood floors guided him forward into the living room and on into the kitchen. It was a simply styled house, with a large, flat-screen television – a Sony distributed seventy-inch LED Tv with four-K HDR and twenty-one-sixty-P screen resolution – and an old record player. Jazz albums lined the walls and were shoved between battered books on the shelves to his left. Ahead, in the kitchen, an old, classic round table – scratched, decent wear around the edges and legs suggesting decades of use: a hand-me-down, possibly – stood in the center of the linoleum tile. The counters were made of cheap granite and the fridge hummed as if its vents were clogged.

“Welcome home, asshole.” Hank shoved around Connor. Connor watched him shuffle down and around until he landed heavily on the sofa. “Sumo! Come here!”

Heavy patter followed Hank’s drunken call and a large, brown-and-white Saint Bernard rounded the corner of the hall and entered the living room. Connor watched, more with awe than fear, as the large, bear-like dog disregarded him completely and heaved itself onto the couch next to the lieutenant.

For a moment, Connor had forgotten why he had come.

Amanda would not be pleased…

…she was never pleased anyway.

“Lieutenant, we have a new case.” Connor announced abruptly. Hank shifted, displacing the couch cushions, as he reached for another cheap beer bottle, likely warmed by the hot house’s temperature. Connor continued, “Agent Perkins contacted me earlier, asking me to retrieve you and drive to a place called the Eden Club downtown. Does this location sound familiar?”

Hank grunted, “Yeah.”

“Well, then we best be on our way. Please, lieutenant, make yourself presentable while I grab you appropriate attire to wear.”

Connor drifted off down to where he assumed the bedrooms would be. He heard Hank calling after him, ordering Sumo to attack. Connor stiffened in the doorway of the bedroom, waiting for growling, rabid barking, hard paw pads hitting the wood floors. Nothing followed except a simple, “Good boy, Sumo…”

He proceeded.

The bedroom was disturbingly barren. Connor had thought the lieutenant to be a man of simple pleasures but, as he wandered the house, he found that Hank was…lonely. Perhaps? His home lacked what an average sixty-to-seventy-year-old man would have donned: pictures of family and friends, hand-drawn work from grandchildren, treasured memories, memorabilia from younger days, hobbies and interests. The only happiness Connor had noticed in Hank’s house was his collection of Jazz records. Even then, however, Connor thought it to be bare.

Hank was alone.

He had a one-bedroom house with a large Saint Bernard and no one else. He was alone.

Connor’s chest burned. It was a warm, hot fire that made him feel softer, not pained. Sympathy, Connor had realized. He was feeling sympathy. Sympathy for someone so similar to himself.

He found his way to the closet and gathered the most professional attire he could muster. As he slipped back out and into the hallway, clothing bundled in his arms, he stopped and watched as Hank slumped back against the sofa, flicking the barrel of his revolver around and around, its zinging the only sound in the empty house.

“You ever play Russian roulette, Connor?” Hank’s voice didn’t sound like his own.

Connor answered truthfully, “I have no desire to die, lieutenant.” After a heartbeat. “Do you?”

Hank sighed. He lowered the revolver to the glass table in front of him and rested his arms across his knees. “You want me to actually answer that?”

Connor didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted Hank to tell the truth, to be honest, for the sake of the investigation. No…it couldn’t be for the sake of the investigation. His personal matters did not pertain to the mission. And as he stood in the hallway of Hank’s empty, sad home, filled with sympathy for an otherwise pitiful coworker, Connor wanted nothing more than to understand.

His own emotions hurt him. They scared him and scarred him and burned him alive. He hated his emotions. But, much with like Chloe, Connor wanted to understand Hank. He wanted to study and break him down, to comprehend his ticks and mechanics in order to uncover his strengths and weaknesses. He wanted to analyze the lieutenant wholly.

He wanted to be able to build him back up should he break down.

Connor dropped the clothes onto the back of the sofa. Hank reached around lazily and dragged them onto his lap. “Stay put.” Hank said. “I’ll be right back.” The lieutenant slipped into the bathroom and Connor rounded the couch in a daze. He lowered himself into Hank’s previously occupied spot and dropped his hand down, brushing through the scratchy soft fur of the Saint Bernard’s.

Sumo.

“Good boy, Sumo…” Connor whispered. He rubbed his hand back and forth and smiled. Petting the dog, oddly enough, made Connor feel the same lightness, the same ease, as he had when flipping his coin. He worked his thumb and fingers into the dog’s skin and down his body and the world lightened. “Good boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> So this bitch is DEFINITELY last minute. My bad. Okay, but here's the thing. I had NO IDEA what to write. No idea. I was completely stumped, because I didn't want to write what I had originally thought of. It just didn't seem to fit. So I was STUCK AS FUCK. And I had no idea what to do about anything and everything was turning out bad.
> 
> So now you got this. This rollercoaster of who is feeling what and what the fuck is going on with everyone and Sumo is here and that's all that matters.
> 
> Sumo is the bestest boy.
> 
> Next to Connor, of course. Connor is the best bestest boy.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for being so patient with me. I wish I had the right words to tell you how overjoyed and pleased I am with you guys and with my work and my progress with my writing. It's always changing and improving and I'm glad you guys are here with me to experience that. It's hella fun. I also love the attention this fic is garnering. Not many human!AUs get this kind of love, so I truly appreciate the support.
> 
> PLEASE PLEASE tell me if there's something fucked up here. I did not edit this AT ALL (like I didn't even look back I just kept typing for like three hours straight or something or whatever) and I have NO IDEA if something makes no sense or if there are a bunch of weird typo-thingies going on or whatever so let me know.
> 
> Wow it's late. I need to sleep. I have an 8am lecture in a few hours lmao rip @ me. But whatever. I love you guys. You make the struggle worth it.
> 
> Also, I want to say that I do have a twitter and a tumblr, but I'm ashamed of both like highkey. Like the twitter was just made a few weeks ago and I literally have one follower and I barely do anything on there so I can post chapter updates there if you want to follow me on that? Maybe? Or I could do the same thing but for my tumblr but that's a really cringey thing so... Let me know your thoughts. Would you guys like updates from twitter? Just follow me on that trash account I have? Or would tumblr be easier? I don't want you guys getting spammed with all the stuff I post because I have a WHOLE community I post for. We're a small, close-knit community but I still post a lot there and I don't want to bother you guys. So I prefer twitter if we're going to do anything like that but, whatever. If you don't want to do any update thing and just want to stumble across this eventually that's cool too. Whatever works. Just let me know. Mmmmkay?
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	8. The Eden Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_17 November 2018 – 01:00.38_

_1177 Woodward Avenue_

_The Eden Club – Crime Scene No.4_

Numbness pooled in Connor’s gut, bleeding into his chest, oozing down his arms and legs, suffocating coherency, scrambling his thoughts into milky mush. He was a mess. He knew, he fully understood just how disastrous he had become. He flexed his hands, Sumo’s silky fur still lingering on his finger pads, and he delved for his coin in his pocket. The rigidity felt foreign, making him shrink back further into the leather seats of Hank’s car.

Connor’s body felt detached from his mind. He struggled to reel himself in, and like a fish on a line, he, too, found himself flailing desperately to escape, not wanting to return to reality. Reality was hot, a sizzling sear on his skin as his flesh cooked and organs popped like balloons under the heat. Reality was cold as it locked his joints and iced his muscles so that one move, one hit, would shatter him into trillions of pieces.

Reality fucking sucked, Connor realized, and he whined low in the back of his throat and folded into himself.

Lights whipped by him, the dark behind Connor’s eyelids strobing between white and black. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and turned his head away, towards Hank. He imagined the lieutenant’s grimace and concern. He heard it as he asked, gruffly, “Connor, what’s up? Are you good?”

Connor breathed in. The air solidified in his throat, clumpy and lodged in his windpipe. “What…constitutes as ‘good’, lieutenant?” He licked his lips. “Because if you are asking whether I am…able to function or if I am capable of investigating this crime scene, I can assure you…” He sighed. It sounded shaky. “I am fully functional.”

The car lurched to a stop. Connor cracked an eye open, a bright red light blinding him. He closed it again “That’s not what I asked, kid.” Hank mumbled.

Connor felt himself trembling. “I understand, lieutenant.”

The drive continued quietly. Connor’s thoughts screeched.

Amanda had taught him to avoid unknown things. Like Kamski had said, she was the master of control, something that Connor desperately craved. He desired her ability to stand levelheaded. He wanted her manipulative abilities. He wanted to be her, even if she was almost synthetic in nature.

Some called Amanda a psychopath. A pure-bred case of insanity wrapped in a small shell to conceal her truth: she was evil. Was Amanda evil? Connor had never thought about it. Connor had never thought about much of anything. He obeyed. Amanda gave orders and he obeyed. Amanda talked and he listened. Amanda raised her hands and Connor leaned into the strike because he wasn’t allowed to pull away lest he wanted another beating from Kamski.

She had told him that understanding emotions and playing the quizzical games that feelings and relationships had to offer would not improve his investigatory reputation but, instead, harm it. She had told him to become the mission; to breathe it in and dream of it until it was who he was, and, with every last fiber and every little tendril, he would become the mission. She had told him that, if he became attached, he would get in his own way. He would compromise himself.

She was right, once again.

Connor felt compromised. He didn’t just know he was, judging by increasingly devolving mental state. He _felt_ like he was. He _felt_ compromised, like a tight coil being pushed down, ready to burst, to spring back upwards. He felt like he was on a tightrope, swaying dangerously, ready to tilt, to fall.

He _wanted_ to fall.

Connor never thought failure could taste so sweet. The potential had his mouth watering.

He wanted to fail a mission? He wanted to be reprimanded? He wanted to suffer the wrath of captain Fowler and Amanda and Kamski and Kara and Alice? He wanted it?

Indeed, he wanted it.

Connor wanted to have a moment of silence after his failure. He wanted to go home and fall apart. He wanted to be able to escape into himself and leave the world behind.

He wanted a break.               

No…what was he talking about?

He wanted a break. But he didn’t _want to_ break. He wanted _a_ break. But how?

Failure seemed to be the only option…

So, yes, he wanted to fail.

But if he failed his mission, what would become of his future? Amanda had generously handed him his previous position with the FBI after Zlatko. She had filled him up with information and valuable methodology and practice, spoon feeding him her most prized technique.

He wanted to bite her hand.

He wanted to bite down until he tasted blood, until it slipped down onto his tongue, coppery and sharp and disgusting. He wanted to see her scream. He wanted her to scream like he had done, like she had _made him_ _do_. Her presence went ragged in his mind and she wilted, repulsive and shriveled and useless. Was she useless?

Before, she had been a sturdy stone in his precipice. As he flooded with things he couldn’t make sense of, Amanda held him tight. She held him…

…she dragged him under.

Had she helped him? Or hurt him? What did she do to him?

Connor had always thought of Amanda as the anchor in his metaphor. But what if she was the ball and chain? What if he needed to surface for air but she pulled him down, kicking and screaming. What if she yanked him further into his emotions, into his confusion, into the things he didn’t understand and didn’t _want_ to understand, dragging him down and down and down until he was so deep in his own mind that he felt nothing.

She numbed him. She neutered him to his emotions. She made him her dog, her toy to employ how she pleased. And he never thought to fight back. He never thought to struggle or protest. He let her mutilate him.

The realization felt like he swallowed bricks, like clay was congealing into masses of stone in his stomach.

What did she _do_ to him…?

A hand clapped his arm. Connor lurched upright, unbreathing, shaky, cold from sweat despite the heat being on full blast. Hank withered next to him, his hand tightening on Connor’s upper arm. “You were just sleeping, kid. Calm down. It was just a dream.”

Sleeping?

Connor didn’t even remember shutting his eyes.

“I…Are you positive, lieutenant?” Connor asked. When had he fallen asleep? Was his conversation with Hank earlier just a dream. Were the sentences they spoke mere fragments of Connor’s unconsciousness.

He couldn’t tell what was real.

Hank removed his hand when Connor began to pull away. “Yeah. Why? What’s got you bothered?”

Everything felt too numb. His body burned.

“I…At the red light…did we speak?”

“Red light?” Something darkened in Hank’s gaze. “We had greens all the way here, Connor.” The lieutenant unbuckled his belt and leaned over the stick shift, looking Connor in the eyes despite Connor’s frantic attempts to avert his stare. “Dechart, you sick? You need to go to the hospital or something?”

Connor shook his head and quickly popped the top button of his shirt to loosen his tie. He struggled, momentarily, whether from his shaking lungs and spastic hands or under the pressure of Hank’s warning gaze, he didn’t know. He just needed to breathe.

The tie came undone and Connor yanked it from under the collar, slamming it on the dashboard. He sighed once and leaned back.

He had forgotten to answer Hank’s question. Or had he? Did he intend to answer any questions at all? What was the question…?

“Connor…” Connor looked to Hank. His own gaze dropped down to Hank’s shoulder, hesitating, and jumping up to see the lieutenant’s eyes.

They were blue.

Connor didn’t realize they were blue.

They were steel blue, like gunmetal, only shinier, a smooth mixture of sky and silver in a thunderstorm’s wrath. They accented his long, grey hair, his aged features, making him appear younger, no, _youthful_ , not younger. He looked his age. He looked tired. The wrinkles that tugged at the corners of his eyes like lines in white sands.

Hank looked _exhausted._

The lieutenant’s face was chiseled by the neons of the Eden Club. “You need to relax.” An order, not a question, Connor noted. He realized he was staring, and he quickly glanced down at his own hands. They were shaking. Why was he always shaking? What if he needed to shake in order to function? What if he was so high-strung that, without consistent movement, he would implode?

Logically, that was impossible. Logically, imploding in on oneself was impossible. But Connor thought, just for a moment, that it was possible and it was happening to him.

Hank said he needed to relax. Amanda had said it too, back then. It was one of the first things she had said to him. To relax. To stop thinking. To let her take control. To let her make him her puppet.

What if he didn’t want to relax?

Was Hank his friend? Or was he Amanda?

Was everyone Amanda? Was everyone and everything around him a plaything of Amanda’s?

“I’m all right.” Connor said dryly. “Please, lieutenant, keep your mind on the investigation. We need to gather as much information as possible if we want to solve…” _The mission._ He couldn’t say it. He forcibly swallowed the word. It, too, became a chunk in his throat. He gasped. “We need to focus.”

After a moment of silence, Hank said, “You need a doctor.” He turned the keys in the ignition and the car stuttered to life.

Connor jerked his seatbelt off and away and rammed his door open, stumbling out into the open air. It was too cold.

He wanted to freeze.

He heard Hank curse and heard shuffling from inside the car before the vehicle’s engine cut and Hank jumped out of his seat, after Connor, swearing colorfully. “For fucks sake, kid, put on your coat.” He had grabbed it from under the passenger’s seat, Connor noticed. It had flakes of crumbs stuck to the warm, woven material. “You’re going to get sick if you just…just _stand out here_ in the middle of fucking November.”

“What if I want to be…” Connor mumbled.

Hank stopped. “ _What?_ ”

Connor snapped his gaze down to the coat. He pulled it from where it draped over Hank’s arm and tossed it back into the car. “Nothing, lieutenant. I will be warm enough with my suit coat, thank you. Please disregard my previous comment.” He moved to walk forward, but instead pivoted and said, “In fact, please disregard _all_ conversation from our car ride. It is best that we focus on the investigation.”

Yes.

Connor needed to focus.

Focus occupied confusion.

Focus massaged his tense nerves.

Focus helped him think.

He needed to focus.

Amanda would have liked to hear that.

Connor recoiled. He wanted to bite his fingers off. He wanted to hurt on the outside so it didn’t hurt on the inside. He wanted to feel the sharpness on his skin so the stabbing in his lungs, in his heart, in the base of his skull, would subside.

He rolled his coin between his fingers before he clamped down around it. Hard. _Harder._

It didn’t hurt.

Not nearly enough, anyway…

“Hey,” Hank jutted his head towards the club. “Let’s go, then. Just…say something if you need to, all right?”

Connor felt himself going cold. His bones stiffened and iced over like metal. He willed himself into it, forcing his thoughts to recede, darkening at the corners, burning the questions, the insecurities, the confusion his emotions caused. He answered, monotonously, “Understood, lieutenant.”

The Eden Club, with thirty-thousand-eight-hundred-two square feet, costing approximately six-hundred-forty-thousand US dollars per month for rental fees, two-hundred-three staff members total, and an average patron count of--

“Hey.” Hank snapped his fingers before Connor’s face. Connor jerked back. “Hey, focus. You said you wanted to focus on the investigation, so focus on the investigation.”

Connor nodded hastily. “Correct, lieutenant. I apologize for my misdemeanor.” His voice sounded fake to him. He sounded plastic, ephemeral and empty. “I’ll go investigate the crime scene now.”

The Eden Club, statistics be damned, was a strip club. Walking through the main doors and down the hallway, where posters of scandalous men and women in their risqué lingerie hung ceiling to floor, Connor instantly felt discomfort. His cheeks burned bright and he averted his eyes to the floor. The topic of sex, while natural, had always made him squeamish. He found himself blushing madly and flustered whenever someone had brought up the act or anything alluding so sexual behaviors.

He needed to shut it off.

Like flipping a switch, Connor slackened. He narrowed his field of vision to the investigation, to the _mission_ , and threw away the unnecessary things. He threw away the emotions. Emotions were not required to be a good investigator. He needed to focus.

Connor stopped and watched as Hank trailed forward and through the secondary doors. He pivoted, turning sharp left, and stared at one of the posters. A man--

Analyze.

\--approximately five-foot-ten to six-foot tall when regarding poster stretching and frame size--

Analyze.

\--and roughly one-hundred-eighty to one-hundred-ninety pounds total, muscular build, with approximately nine to thirteen percent body fat--

Analyze.

\--dark brown hair, light blue eyes--

Chloe had blue eyes.

Chloe’s eyes, so similar to Hank’s, where the brightest of blues mixed with the winter landscape, frosting over…

_Analyze._

\--and light tan skin, average for a male Caucasian in his mid-to-late twenties.

Connor stiffened.

He forced himself to relax. He forced himself to submit to pure analyses and forensic investigation.

To his right, he heard a sharp, nasally scoff. Reed. “What’s up, Mr. Roboto? Feeling a little… _aroused_ by a man?”

“Incorrect.” Connor said. He turned his head sharply, facing Reed. “I was merely analyzing the average worker of the Eden Club. Ages range between twenty-one to twenty-seven, with men averaging a steady height above five-foot-ten-inches and a body fat percentage of eleven percent, and women at a height between five-foot-even and five-foot-four and a body fat percentage of seventeen percent.”

Reed tightened. His expression scrunched as he wrinkled his nose. “Who fucked up the cogs in your machine?”

“I am fully functional, detective Reed.”

Reed nodded and sidestepped, revealing Perkins. Ahead, Reed called out, “Hey Anderson, your robo-boy’s got another stick up his ass! Want to yank it out before he starts scaring the kids away?”

Connor looked down at Perkins, who was finishing his cigarette in the shelter of the hallway. Wind screamed outside around them. “What’s up, Dechart?”

“I am fully functional, agent Perkins.” Connor repeated. “I plan to analyze this crime scene and promptly return to the precinct to complete all case files pertaining to the investigation.”

Perkins hummed low. “Right…”

“Hey, Connor!” Hank waved him forward.

Connor turned back to Perkins and said, “I look forward to what information you have gathered on RA-Nine and the trails of red ice.” He walked forward, through the doors. Hot pinks and reds made his eyes burn but Connor refused to flinch. He pushed forward, past Hank, and towards where the majority of officers crowded the area. Hank shuffled after him, breathing heavy, his eyes boring into the side of Connor’s head. He could see him from his periphery, staring intently as if he were trying to penetrate a wall.

Connor didn’t put up walls. He had no emotions to hide. He had no need for walls. “Lieutenant Anderson, if there is something you require, please do not hesitate--”

Hank grabbed the loose fabric of his sports coat and spun him around. He stopped before Hank, inches away from him, and struggled not the pull away, to jerk back, to yell for his personal space and cry out because he felt too crowded and covered and his skin was tingling, pricks of hot pain making him shiver and twist involuntarily. He worked to keep his face neutral. His eyebrows betrayed him as they furrowed slightly. His lip curled soon after and he rolled his shoulders to keep from screaming.

“This is me not hesitating, then.” Hank whispered loudly. “What the _fuck_ is going on here, huh? You were fine and dandy _hours_ ago. Now you’re back to this robotic shit. What’s _going on_?”

Connor didn’t answer. He swallowed his words, swallowed his desperation, swallowed the need to tell Hank to help him, not ask, but _tell_ because there was something wrong. Something in Amanda’s programming was cracked. He felt like he was leaking, like there was a break in his systems and he was going to fall apart and everyone would see something so raw, so _human_ , so disgustingly vulnerable that they would turn away and he would be left to writhe on the floor in agony, begging someone to help him understand what he was feeling, to help him because he _didn’t understand what he was feeling_ \--

“I am fine, lieutenant.” Inside, Connor wailed, slamming against an invisible wall. “Please resume the investigation. The mission is of upmost importance.”

“ _Connor…_ ”

“I have no further need to be talking to you, lieutenant Anderson.”

“Like _fuck_ you don’t!” His voice got too loud. Heads turned. Connor panicked. He jerked back, smoothly, and straightened his jacket. He wanted his tie. He looked unprofessional. He didn’t look like an FBI agent. He looked like a fucking disaster.

Amanda would kill him.

And if she did, then he would kill her.

Connor breathed in sharp through his nose and moved forward once again.

He didn’t have time to analyze their surroundings. He didn’t have time to investigate every scruple, every little detail, every possibility.

He was losing his mind.

He needed to _focus_.

Connor slid between the dozens of officers, careful to avoid every moving hand and every shifting foot, careful not to touch _anyone_ because he would _scream_ if he did and he couldn’t handle having another breakdown, not now, not when he was so close to normalcy. He needed to investigate. That was his normal. That was what he was _made_ for.

Was it?

Why did Amanda choose him? Why did she choose the crippled autistic boy in a wheelchair? Why did she choose him?

He was weak.

He was vulnerable.

He was ripe for the pickings, easy to both manipulate and form, warm and pliant in her hands like dough, ready to be shaped into some twisted monster. She had no qualms making him useless in every other regard outside of her needs. She _ruined_ him.

Amanda _broke_ him.

Connor choked on a cry. Nobody heard. Nobody saw. He was alone, with one body, in the suite. With seconds left before Hank, Perkins, and Reed piled in, Connor gasped, shuddered, clung to his chest with a sweaty, splayed-wide hand and curled over himself. Tears squeezed from his eyes and he coughed, mouth open, feeling sick to his stomach.

The curtain was jerked open behind him.

Connor popped upright. He gagged as he forced his emotions down his throat, shoved them into imaginary black boxes with locks upon locks upon locks hiding them from the world. He forced himself to stiffen and still.

Reed walked around him, disregarding him. Perkins followed. Hank stopped to his left. “Take deep breaths, kid. You’ll get through the night.”

No emotions.

None.

He didn’t need them.

_No emotions._

“Promise.” Connor’s voice betrayed him. He betrayed himself. Was he betraying himself? Or was he betraying Amanda? What was Amanda and what was him? He didn’t even recognize himself anymore.

“I promise.” Hank said, low, low enough that his voice reverberated through Connor, shocking him into reality, a ground to stand on. Low enough that Perkins and Reed couldn’t hear them from where they fiddled with evidence and glanced around the room.

Connor breathed out shakily.

_No emotions._

He needed to focus.

The suite was circular in structure, with cherry red walls and hardwood floors. The body of a man - Michael Graham - was slouched over on the bright pink sofa that curled around the room, soft in material and made of polyester-polyurethane, weighing approximately two-hundred-forty-five pounds and priced at an unknown amount due to its incredible customization.

The man, Graham, was roughly six-foot-two and two-hundred pounds, with brown hair and dark, fogged-over eyes. Blood was drained from his face, void of all color except corpse-grey, with fat, blackish-purple ovals of bruise separating his flush torso from his ashen cheeks and blue lips.

He did not have the trademark twenty-eight stab wounds, nor were his eyes removed. He was in-tact, save for punctures in his upper arm, like needle marks. Connor leaned over, eyes jumping between the dots of dried blood.

Twenty-eight.

In his hand, clenched loosely, was a tiny wood carving, with a simple ‘R’ carved into its head.

A copycat, perhaps? Or someone who was moving fast? Someone who was desperate? Someone who needed to get it done quick and run because there was only so much time and so much space--

“Looks like the guy was having _a good time_ , am I right?” Reed chuckled, glancing over at Perkins for confirmation. Perkins sighed and shrugged. Connor bit back the growl that burned up his throat.

Perkins offered a brief, “Guess so.” He pulled out his cell phone and began typing in something slowly. He was always a slow texter. Connor hated that.

He also hated Reed’s need to be obnoxious. He was wrong. Their victim didn’t die from a ‘good time’. He died from strangulation. He was murdered. Murdered by someone with RA-Nine.

It was part of the mission.

He needed to focus on the mission.

“He died from strangulation.” Connor said quickly. “As evident by the bruising.”

It took Reed a moment before he understood that Connor was undermining him, and he snorted. “I don’t expect you to get it, but I _looks_ like he was just having too much fun.”

“I perfectly understand S-and-M dynamics, detective Reed.” Connor knelt down, staring at the body. The vessels in his eyes were popped and bright. “However, his eyes are bloodshot and his lips are blue. He was strangled until death.” Connor popped upright.

The room spun. His hand dropped to the wall as he waited for everything to still. He waited for his stomach to stop twisting his guts. He waited. Swallowed vomit. Choked at the acidity.

He heard Hank ask something, like “are you all right” or “what’s wrong” or “we’re going to the hospital” or “you’re a nuisance to this case”.

Connor straightened. He reached up to straighten his tie and lazily remembered it was gone, left on the dashboard of Hank’s musty car, until his fingers were up and fiddling with the unbuttoned flaps of his collar.

He needed to focus.

_Fucking focus._

“I will investigate the CCTV footage.” Connor announced. He turned to exit through the curtain.

Reed said, loudly, loud enough for those outside to hear, likely. “Damn, you sure we can trust him in here? A twenty-something rampaging around a sex club?”

Connor felt his cheeks burn.

He choked on his emotions. On embarrassment. On anger. On confusion. On questions that he didn’t want answered because he fucking _hated_ Reed and every thought the slimy, slithering man had.

He _hated_ him.

Reed continued, “Don’t be surprised if he disappears for a little _side job_.” He signaled with his hands something lewd, something disgusting, and Connor barely restrained himself.

Connor pivoted sharply. He spun so fast the world blurred into lines of color. “Detective Reed,” He breathed deep. “This is a strip club, not a sex club. Therefore, the actions you are suggesting would be illegal. I would like to also inform you that we are here for investigatory purposes and no other means and, therefore, secondary agendas do not concern me. Finally, I would like to say that I do, in fact, have a significant other in my life and I find no appeal to explore other relationships at this time.”

A beat of silence passed. Connor went white all over. Mortification slit his wrists and drained his blood. He felt too cold and too hot.

Reed snarked, “I--” A forced laughed, breathy and fake. His eyes betrayed his anger. “I mean, that’s never stopped any red normal, blooded male.” He swallowed. Hard, sharp, a loud sound, one that signified fear, confusion, anger, self-hatred. “Not even me.”

Connor was about to snap back, to scream at Reed’s stupidity. But it clicked into place. It, like a puzzle, like it always did in investigations, had clicked into place. Connor sighed and let the tension bleed from his shoulders. “Well,” Connor said softly. “It should stop someone with dignity and respect for themselves and their significant other.”

Did he need his emotions?

They obviously sabotaged Reed. They clearly drove Hank to drink. They visibly destroyed Perkins’ reputation.

What did they do for Connor?

He didn’t need emotions.

He needed focus.

He needed discipline.

He needed to _complete_ his _mission_.

But _fuck_ if he didn’t want to.

He wanted to curl up and shrivel like snake skin, dying, dehydrating, wasting away into nothing. He didn’t want to do anything but to disappear. Fuck the mission. Fuck Amanda. Fuck Kamski. Fuck the FBI.

But without them, what was he?

Where would he be without Amanda? Locked away in a mental institution or special needs home, where they coddled him and cooed whenever he wiped his own ass or said a single word? Driven to insanity, unable to breathe on his own, too scared to live, too tired to move?

Or would he have been adopted by someone who loved him?

Would he have grown up with strong arms wrapped around him, holding him when everything became too much and the world was too loud? Would he have had parents who cared for him just as if he was their own flesh and blood? Would he have gone to school, come home, complained about doing homework, whined because his mother told him to clean his room, and instead, he’d play hooky with his dad as they snuck in time for videogames and snacks before dinner?

Would he be normal?

Connor walked back through the sea of officers and first responders and away from the noise. He didn’t need to cover his ears, he couldn’t hear. He didn’t need to fidget with his coin or pet Sumo’s fur, he couldn’t feel. He didn’t need to squeeze his eyes shut and block out the world, he couldn’t see.

He couldn’t do anything.

What was he without Amanda?

Where would he be?

He could have been somewhere better, somewhere brighter, somewhere with a normal life and a normal future. He could have been everything he wanted and desperately craved. He could have been what he had daydreamed for years when Amanda wasn’t teaching him or when Kamski wasn’t beating him. He could have been so much more…

…he could even save a life.

He couldn’t even save a little girl and her mother.

Why was he in the FBI? To hunt criminals, like a monster. To investigate and analyze, like a machine? To take up space and become a punching bag for those that needed to vent, like a toy?

A monster. A machine. A toy.

An _object_.

Was that what he was to Amanda? Truly.

An object.

A nothing.

A disposable something that was nothing to her.

What was he to Chloe?

What was he to _himself?_

“Excuse me, can I help you?” A man jolted Connor from his own skin. He looked down at the shriveled elderly man, his large neck beaded with sweat, his potbelly spilling over his too-tight dress pants.

When Connor didn’t answer, the man continued, “I’m Floyd. Floyd Mills. I am the manager of the Eden Club.” He glanced Connor over slowly. “What can I help you with?”

Connor reflexively said, “My name is Connor Dechart. I’m with the FBI. I would like to look at your CCTV footage.”

“FBI?” Mills' mouth curled, as if he sucked on a lemon. “You don’t look like FBI.”

He was right. He didn’t look like FBI because he wasn’t wearing his tie. He had always worn his tie. “My tie is in the car.” Connor said blankly.

Mills' eyebrow snaked up his forehead to his hairline. “What? Why would that--”

“Connor.” Hank stopped besides Mills and Connor. He sighed heavily. Connor wondered for a moment if he was still drunk. If he was ill.

Why did that matter?

Did Hank even care about Connor?

Part of him said yes, said of course, you fucking idiot, because otherwise he wouldn’t be nagging you and prodding you.

Part of him said no, said in a sing-song voice that, naturally, Hank was being paid to cooperate, paid to care, just as Perkins was.

Connor knew, of course, that Perkins wanted to boost his own reputation. And Kamski needed an inside man. He needed someone to report on Connor’s every move and every breath. And Amanda, that _bitch_ , signed it all off. In turn, Perkins got a chunk of cash and a free flight to Detroit, Michigan.

Connor knew.

Amanda thought he didn’t because Amanda thought he was stupid.

Maybe he was better that way.

Stupid. Without thought. Without emotions.

Emotions _hurt_ so _fucking_ much.

Hank started speaking again. When did he stop? Did he ever stop? How much time passed? “Mr. Mills, I see you’ve met my partner with the FBI.” Hank gestured to Connor. “We’d like to look at any recovered CCTV footage you have of this area during the time of the crime.”

Connor listened. He tried. He couldn’t. The words went in one ear and out the other and he found himself struggling to recall where he was, let alone what Hank was saying.

“All right.” Mills eyed Connor for another moment before he said, “Follow me. It’s in the back room.” He started walking. Hank fell into step beside the man, allowing Connor to hang back, to have his space.

So Hank _did_ care?

Or was he reading into nothing?

Was he really just nothing?

What was he to anyone? How could Hank find appeal to a partner that couldn’t even do his job? How could Chloe find interest in someone who was as broken as the rest of her fucked up patients? How could Amanda see potential in him, in his child self, when he couldn’t even _walk_ , let alone run, socialize, investigate, and become something that she needed him to be?

“Hey, Connor,” Hank had stopped walking. So had Mills. He nearly ran into them both. “Thanks, we’ll take it from here.” Hank said to the manager, who turned hesitantly, giving Connor one more glare, seething with doubt, before he left the back room.

The back room?

When did they go through different doors? He didn’t remember entering the cold, concrete-floored back room. He didn’t remember feeling the temperature drop or seeing the scenery shift. He didn’t remember anything. His mind was blank.

He was _blank._

Nothing made any sense and Connor struggled to stop his hands from shaking as he leaned over the computer terminal on the icy metal desk and begin scrolling through the footage. The time stamp blurred into incoherent numbers as he whizzed forward through the night. Bodies bolted across the screen as blobs of brown and peach and tan – the strippers, no doubt – with the occasional splotch of colors – the patrons – dispersing the reds and pinks and heat in the club.

Few people visited the club for longer than half an hour, Connor found. Finding Graham would be difficult. Finding his killer would be even more difficult.

Finding the killer of Graham's would be the most difficult, Connor realized, when his brain was barely functioning. He couldn’t even hear himself think. He couldn’t think at all because nothing made sense anymore. Why did anything need to make sense anyway? Why did anything need to matter at all anyway? Why did--

Stop.

Rewind.

Connor tapped the left mouse button, once, twice, barely scrolling back, moving in short pulses of time. His eyes focused on the blurry, multi-pixelated image of their Graham. He stumbled as if he were drunk already, not once visiting the bar but moving quickly to the area where the strippers performed exotic dances behind bright red curtains.

Where he was murdered.

He was getting intimate with a worker when he was murdered.

It made sense.

The curtains would be drawn for the dance, and the worker could strangle him and move on. It would also logically be a worker, as one would be able to slip it, stab him with something sharp, and easily hide their small, carved RA-Nine statuette in their lingerie. It would have to be small. It made sense.

“It was a worker, Hank. Female, likely. The puncture wounds in Graham's arm would line up with a hair pin or barrette of some kind.”

Hank asked, “How’d they get the statue in there?”

“It would likely be hidden in her blouse. If she were…well endowed…” The sentence made him squirm. “…then she would have been able to conceal it in her top.”

“Makes sense.” Hank leaned over the monitor as well. “Can you see who did it?”

“I’m…unsure. The multitude of people makes it difficult to pinpoint anything for certain.” He continued to scroll slowly. “I…”

There.

“There.” Connor pointed to the screen. A woman, average in build, face hidden, but with blue hair.

“What, that one?” Hank pointed to the same girl. “She’s got blue hair…”

Connor glanced over at him. “Her unnaturally colored hair would make her quite easy to pick from a crowd, lieutenant.”

“Looks like we need to talk to these girls, huh?” Hank grinned.

Connor nodded. “Indeed.”

Hank rushed for the door and Connor followed, briefly, before everything crashed down upon him again.

For a second, he felt like he was floating, weight-free and blissful. For a moment, he didn’t feel scared or confused. For a moment, he enjoyed the rush of adrenaline, the spike of excitement, the thrill of a chase. For a moment, he liked feeling something. Feeling emotion.

But as he stared at the bland walls around him and saw the neon blue beyond the door, he grimaced. He knew where he was, he knew what was going on, and he knew, without a doubt, that something was wrong with him. There was something, but he couldn’t say what.

No, he knew what.

Amanda was what that ‘what’ was.

But how could anyone fix him when _Amanda_ was the problem? How could anyone fix him when Amanda had thoroughly ruined him using Kamski and Kara and Alice and Zlatko and everything painful?

How could Hank help him?

Hank’s head popped from around the door. “Dechart! Let’s go! They have to release the witnesses in less than two minutes! We don’t have time!”

Connor’s legs felt like lead. Like stuffed metal, hard and rigid on the outside, unable to bend, unable to move, squishy and without support on the inside, ready to collapse in on itself at any moment.

“I…Lieutenant…” Connor sniffed. He blinked, and blinked more when he realized he was about to start crying. Again. In front of Hank. _Again._ “Lieutenant, I…think I am unwell after all…”

He could see Hank understanding. He could see him processing and nodding slowly and thinking of how to fix him, how to help. But he could also see his desperation. He could see his need to move, to _catch the killer_ , and Connor composed himself. He straightened his shirt and jacket and stepped forward. “However, that can wait until later. For now, we must apprehend the suspect.”

Hank’s eyes lit up. “Good kid.” He clapped Connor on the shoulder and rushed forward, down the halls. Connor stuck close to his heels. They roped around the winding halls and through the explosions of color until they hit a darkened hallway. At the end, a door. Inside, the witnesses. Their blue-haired suspect. Their killer. “Okay, they’re all down here. Malloy said that he rounded up every employee on shift tonight, so that’s a couple dozen people. But like you said, blue’s going to be easy to spot.”

“Let us hope so, lieutenant.” Connor walked forward and yanked the back door open.

Inside, a large, high-ceilinged docking bay greeted them, with an abundance of couch cushions, sofas, and poles piled in the back. Unmarked boxes and shelves of clothing and toys were to their left. A few conveyor belts sat in the center of the dimly lit room.

To their right, Connor suspected roughly fifty employees stood or sat, patiently or impatiently, waiting. One girl, in the back, was sobbing. Her tiny frame rattled in the arms of another woman’s strong embrace. Connor felt guilt slam into his sternum. He wanted to console her. He wanted to assure her that she was not their blue-haired killer. She looked so similarly to Chloe…

No.

He needed to focus.

To drown out the emotion.

No…

He didn’t want to do that.

He wanted emotion.

Didn’t he?

_Fuck…_

“All right,” Hank said, loudly, and all heads turned to them. Connor instantly began scanning the room, his eyes jumping from face to hair to face to hair. Blue. It was hard to see such a dark shade of blue in such a painfully dark garage. “We would like all of you to cooperate. Please remain calm and still while we ask you guys a few questions.”

In the corner of the room.

There.

Blue hair.

There she was.

Connor’s body went weightless again. He didn’t stop it. He breathed in the satisfaction. He needed it. It pushed his legs forward, made him want to walk, made him want to chase, made him want to _win_.

Fuck Amanda’s mission.

This was his, now.

His mission.

_His._

“Excuse me,” Connor tilted his head as he walked forward, for her. “May I ask you a question.”

The woman had a rounded face with large, bright cheeks. Her long, dark navy hair fell over her shoulders, down her chest – easily concealing an RA-Nine statuette, Connor thought – and her eyes were big and bright and doe-like. “Me?” she asked softly.

“Yes.” Connor said. “I have a question regarding your whereabouts--”

Something collided with his head. Hard and heavy. Metal. He reeled, stumbling, falling back against some people while the employees scrambled. He slumped against a shelf that teetered to support his weight. Something warm wrapped around his torso, behind his back, jerking his gun from its holster. Connor’s vision struggled to correct itself.

His gun. Another girl had his gun.

She had deep brown hair. A similar face, innocent and darling looking, but with eyes colder than Amanda’s.

“Don’t fucking move, bitch!” Hank called from the staircase, his pistol up and at arm’s length. The woman before Connor tightened considerably. She looked ready to shoot. To _kill_ him.

For a moment, Connor contemplated begging.

He _wanted_ to live.

Emotion. He wanted to experience emotions. He wanted to _truly_ experience them. It felt _good_. He felt _alive_. Fear pumped ice through his veins. His heart stuttered and his nerves were alight with fiery terror and he _felt so_ _alive_.

He _needed_ this.

“I’ll kill you. I swear to _God_ I’ll fucking kill you.” The woman hissed.

Connor remained still. “I understand that.”

“Do it and I’ll blow your fucking brains out!” Hank screamed. His safety release echoed through the now empty, now still docking garage. “Back up, blue!” He jerked his gun towards the blue-haired girl, who complied shakily.

“Amelia, don’t do this…” the blue-hair girl whispered. “It…I had to. You know I did.”

“Shut _up_ , Traci!”

Connor’s eyes caught on a chain nearby, near the brown-haired girl – Amelia’s – foot. He shifted when the girl became distracted. Shifted enough so that the end of the chain was near his fingers. Ready to pull. Ready to knock her down and overpower her.

He had to.

He _loved_ this.

Excitement. He had never felt it so powerfully before. He wanted to live experience more.

He _needed_ to.

“Amelia! _Please_! Don’t do this! Don’t kill anyone!” Traci pleaded.

Amelia snapped back, “You killed for me! So I’ll kill for you!”

Love.

Connor wanted to feel that, too.

He wanted to love Chloe without bounds. He wanted to love friends and family and have those he could call his own. He wanted to love someone so _badly_ and he never even realized it until now. He needed _love_. Not Amanda. Not more training. Not discipline. Not a lack of emotion. He _needed_ emotion because it felt _so fucking good_ to feel so human.

Emotions confused him. They confused him to the point where he didn’t understand why he was hurting, only that he was.

But emotions were good, too. Excitement. Passion. _Love._

He wanted to experience those, now.

Connor grabbed the chain. He jerked it back. Amelia stumbled back, the metal colliding with her high heels. The gun went off. Hank’s pistol fired right after. Traci screamed out of terror. Amelia wailed in agony, her blood spilling from where Hank’s bullet lodged in her arm. She collapsed. Traci sank to the floor next to her.

Connor felt pride. Excitement. Adrenaline. Pain.

Pain…?

He glanced down at where bright red and white sparks of pain shot up and through his shoulder. His black sports coat got darker, got blacker, spreading over and into his white shirt now pinkish maroon.

Blood.

He was _shot_.

Connor sputtered. He sank back, sliding down the shelf, hitting the floor. A strangled sound ripped up his throat but he felt heavenly. He felt high on his own emotions because he was scared, and in excruciating agony, but excited, and ecstatic, and _alive._ He heard Hank screaming, shouting something, shouting at Amelia and then at Traci and then at him, and as Connor stared up at the ceiling, he heard sirens whining in the distance. He could barely see. He could barely hear. He couldn’t feel anything and yet felt _everything_ , like a funnel of agony, pulsing with his heartbeat, waves of sharp, thrumming _pain_ making his lungs stutter and muscles twitch and mouth move with no sound to come out. It _hurt_. Everything _hurt_.

Hurt had never felt so _good_ before…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> Projection??? ME??? PROJECTING??? WHAT??? What gave you THAT idea???
> 
> Yeah, no, I'm projecting. I'm having a rough time, honestly, and I don't really know what to make of it. I'm good, not dying any time soon so don't worry, this fic will continue to be updated. Sorry it took so long to update. But this has like, 7k words???? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN??? Inner monologue, man. It just keeps running and then BOOM before you know it you're at 80 million K words and you don't know what you've done and you've solved world hunger and world war 50 is starting and it's just a mess.
> 
> So, yeah, my bad. I'm so sorry for the long-ass wait time between updates.
> 
> How are you guys doing?
> 
> OH! And here we go! Exciting news maybe possibly? So if you guys want (you don't have to) you can follow @heckin-dogs on twitter. That's my throwaway account. I think I have like four followers and it's literally just a place for me to talk about DBH and get all hyped looking at dog memes and shit and retweet Bryan and Amelia's stuff. That's it. So, from now on, I'll send out tweets whenever I finish a chapter. That way, you guys can zip on over and read it right away and don't have to play the game of "oh, I wonder if he finally updated that fic, let's go check it out" and them be disappointed when I didn't. So now, you'll know. Right away. Ish. I promise I don't retweet a lot so you won't see anything of mine poisoning your dash. No worries. Starting next chapter, I'll send out tweets whenever I upload. And that'll likely go for any other fics I write so if you like me as a writer then BAM you'll always get my updates. Ain't that swifty nifty?
> 
> Yo, btw, who else is nervous for Connor? Like good for you, boo, you're exploring emotions. But you're also connecting pain as being a GOOD EMOTION LIKE NO YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, MY BOY. STOP. AH. Tell me your thoughts? You nervous asf? I know I am. SHIT.
> 
> Anyhoo, thank you for reading. I love you guys. ALL 4000 OF YOU! AH! SO MANY??? PEOPLE??? AH! Thank you. Genuinely. Thank you. I look forward to your comments and your possible follows and everything else you guys have to offer me!
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	9. The Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to note that I am a writer and by no means a professional in any of the fields depicted. All descriptions were researched but in no way are 100% accurate. Please excuse any inaccuracies that you may come across.
> 
> I do not own Detroit: Become Human nor do I own the characters. All rights belong to Quantic Dream and David Cage.

_17 November 2018 – time unknown…?_

_117…something… Woodward Avenue_

_The Eden Club – Crime Scene No…No. what?_

Distantly, Connor registered the sounds his mind refused to process. They echoed in the hollow of his skull, reverberating off the bony walls, becoming nonsensical to his overworked mind. Two men hollered over one another, and two women shrieked back, all washed away by sirens’ cries looping around them, tying them tight in place.

Traci and Amelia had nowhere to go. Murdering as a part of a cult was one misdemeanor, but assaulting an officer of the law was another…

…then it hit Connor…

…he had been shot.

When?

Just now. Just now?

Did it hurt? He didn’t feel anything.

Was it supposed to hurt? No. No, it did hurt. It _really_ hurt.

_Everything_ hurt. He realized the ache radiating throughout his body as dull-set agony, wound down to a small digit as his brain struggle to keep up. His shoulder felt warm and heavy, as if glued to the ground and, as he slowly began to shift his legs, then his arms, his world exploded in fireworks of white-noise and red-hot agony. Sound shorted out. His eyes cut to black. Or were they open in the first place?

Connor couldn’t stop blinking. His eyelids fluttered frantically. His thoughts lagged. Spikes emanated from his shoulder, piercing his lungs, heart, stomach, scraping up his neck, stabbing the base of his skull, all pounding in time with his pulse. He rolled his head back on the cool concrete, his gaze dropping as his chin tilted to the side involuntarily.

On the staircase, far away, he saw a familiar leather jacket and stubby legs – Reed – and the trademark pencil-styled suit that Perkins always wore next to him. Reed’s gun was up, aimed past Connor, somewhere behind him…next to him…where was the threat?

Connor moved to turn his head again. He shifted, and he was submerged in silence once more.

The pain lingered. It buzzed down his arms and legs and pooled at his feet and hands, shooting up again in precise beats, stemming from the bullet wound. The ceiling greeted his eyes and he found himself transfixed on the grey of the concrete tiles.

Connor would have never imagined that something as grotesque, as nightmare-inducing as _pain_ , could make him feel so alive. It was a different kind of pain. He was used to swollen knuckles and blackened eyes and split lips to match his aching muscles. He was accustomed to the infliction being a direct result of his action; his failure to comply meant one simple strike, his inability to execute a move meant the move be done on him for demonstration.

He was used to the pain being his fault. He was used to it being his punishment.

Connor had recalled the first time he had heard of the phrase ‘time out’, wherein an imposed temporary suspension of activities was directed upon, specifically when regarding the actions of a misbehaving child whereto separation from one or more playmates was used as a disciplinary measure. He found it ironic. Connor had laughed out loud, genuinely, at first as the thought of discipline being directed through non-physical measures seemed ludicrous and, overall, impossible.

It was only when Chloe had pushed down on his tense shoulders and told him that ‘time out’ was, in fact, normal, did a knob of confusion and fear begin to swell in his stomach. Back then, he was embarrassed to admit that envy had overtaken his body for the next few days, his training more aggressive, his words sharper, his mind numbed.

Kamski had liked that.

He had knocked Connor out only once that week.

The pain that blurred the edges of his mind, morphing him into a monster in his own skin, had terrified him. The pain that Amanda and Kamski had so generously given him had made him think there was no escape from himself.

But the pain from a bullet?

The pain from _this_ bullet.

Connor’s heart careened with the taste of it. He craved it as soon as he got it. Kamski’s wounds were weighted and dull. They pushed on his thoughts and pulled at his sanity until he felt like a stranger in his own mind, forced to leave, to let someone else in.

For the first time in a long time, though, Connor felt freed from Amanda’s grasp. He felt free of her maniacal barbarism. He felt awakened from an impossibly deep slumber, from a comatose state of orders given and action taken. He felt alive and, for the first time in a long time, Connor took a lungful of air. His chest burned. The wound was on fire. But he could breathe.

A laughed bubbled in his chest. A wet cough ripped up his throat instead, jostling him. He winced but leaned into the pain.

Was this what Hank had felt all those times he had held a gun to his temple? Did he, too, feel the freedom to run from himself whenever the barrel of a pistol was pointed to his skull? Connor, too, found that sweet, pure release to be nearly blissful. To realize he could escape from Amanda, prying himself from her hands, working the roots of her poisonous heart out of his mind. To finally _see_ that he wasn’t Amanda, that he was and _could be_ himself. It felt like a distanced dream. It felt like it were epochs away.

To hold it so firmly in his grasp. To see it so clearly in his mind. To understand it so simply down to its most minute detail…

Was that what Hank had felt when he was suicidal?

Did he, too, see the trap door from his own life opening before him?

Hank…

He knelt down in front of Connor, his mouth moving slower than his words, the sound unsynchronized and confusing. “Connor? Can you hear me?”

Connor nodded.

Or maybe he didn’t…

“Don’t move, I got to see how bad it is. Just…sit still…”

Connor continued to stare upwards, up towards the ceiling. He felt Hank’s hands drop to his chest, working shakily at the buttons of his shirt, at the knot of his tie. The lieutenant peeled away the fabric of Connor’s clothes slowly and Connor breathed in tight with anticipation. He had been so focused on his own freedom, he had forgotten to check. He had no idea how bad the wound was. The bullet could have ripped through the meat of his shoulder, through-and-through, nice and clean but leading a black bloody hole in its wake. It could have lodged itself in the bone, thick and cold and leaking poison into his bloodstream. It could have pried apart an artery or vessel, leaving it to leak like a broken faucet, killing him within minutes.

He didn’t want to die.

He wanted to _live_. He had found out how to live and he wanted it so desperately.

“Lieutenant--” Connor moved to sit up. Hank’s hand over his heart held him down. “Lieutenant, how…is it--”

“Hold still, Connor.” Hank slipped off Connor’s tie and Connor instantly became conscious of just how aware he was. Amelia was screaming in the background, her shrill voice echoing off the walls. Traci cried out for her, her soft-spoken words muffled by Reed’s orders and Perkin’s complaints. Connor glanced down, his own body obscuring most of the drama, but he watched as the girls were separated from one another, Amelia kicking and screaming and Traci sobbing in Reed’s arms.

Hank worked over him, his expression tight and wrinkled and unhealthily concerned. With one final movement he pried the blood-soaked fabric from the wound, the edges of his raw, ripped skin snagging on the material and Connor cried out involuntarily, turning away, blinking the world back into focus. Sirens screamed all around him. Hank’s hands were too hot, his breath too close. The floor was too cold. The lights were too bright. Everything was too fucking _much_ and Connor tried to wriggle away.

“Connor, hold _fucking_ still.” Hank palm moved from his chest to his other shoulder, sliding him back across the floor, Connor’s arm hitting Hank’s knees. Connor fought back, both hands clawing at Hank’s as they tried to prod at the bullet wound, too close, too hot, too much, _way too much_. Hank slammed his hand next to Connor’s head on the floor and Connor jerked to a halt. “Hold _still_ , you fucking…” His voice trailed and his squinted down at Connor’s shoulder.

Connor peeked down, too. There was blood everywhere. His whole shirtfront and jacket were stained bright with it.

“Lieutenant…is it serious?” Connor asked again. He didn’t want to die. What if it was serious? What if he _was_ dying? What if he had had his philosophical exploration of his self for _no fucking reason_? What if--

Hank shook his head. His eyes were still transfixed on the injury. “It just grazed you, thank _fuck_. But it looks like it’ll need a lot of stitches and shit.”

Connor felt sick.

Hank looked sick. “It’s fucking disgusting.”

Connor took another deep breath. “Understandably, lieutenant…”

The pain felt freeing.

It also _burned_ , searing the edges of his mind, making everything too much.

Overstimulation, however, was not what Connor wanted to regain full consciousness to.

Far away, Reed asked, “Yo, is the kid all right?”

“He’ll live.” Hank called back. “Where’re the girls?”

Reed dropped into Connor’s line of vision near the staircase. When had he left? Connor didn’t even notice the absence of Traci’s cries or Amelia’s wailing. The sirens, too, were quiet. “Perkins’ got them. They’re causing all sorts of shit, it’s really fucking irritating.” Reed gestured over his shoulder. Slowly, he glanced down at Connor and knelt over him. “Fuck, that’s gross.” Reed laughed and looked up at Hank. “EMTs will be here in a few. They left with the body minutes before you guys decided to have your little shoot out so…” He shrugged. “Tough shit.”

“Detective…” Connor’s voice died out. He coughed weakly and continued, “Detective Reed,  your presence is…annoying…” He sighed heavily and Hank chuckled.

Reed soured. “Yeah, and your presence is a pain in my ass but you don’t fucking hear me complaining about it.” Reed snapped.

Hank raised his eyebrow. “Really, Gavin?”

Connor’s vision began to fuzz out.

“Kid’s got a stick shoved up his ass on the regular and you don’t hear me saying shit about it!” Reed barked.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Hank jabbed his finger towards the door. His hands were rusty-red with Connor’s blood. “Move it, you prick!”

Consciousness began to wax and wane, slipping in and out, time becoming timeless and reality obscuring around the edges.

Reed threw up his hands as he stood. “Fuck me. All right, I’m leaving, I’m leaving…”

Sound dropped out first. Everything echoed. Then touch, buzzing numbly, warm and cold, leaving Connor disoriented. Connor couldn’t feel the floor under him, nor could he feel Hank’s hands. He saw Hank smile and say something but nothing reached his ears.

His vision flurried at the edges. Everything went dark.

 

 

 

_20 November 2018 – 01:06.57_

_311 Mack Avenue_

_DMC Harper University Hospital_

The hospital room smelled disgustingly sterile, tangy and tight, leaving no room to breathe. The walls and floors were just as white as the snowy haze outside, blinding Connor’s senses as he sat diligently on the side of the bed. The nurse before him – five-foot-one to five-foot-two-inches, roughly one-hundred-eighty to two-hundred-pounds in weight, with light eyes and an even lighter smile – shook her head and asked, softy, “Are you sure you want to be leaving right now? You still got weeks of healing ahead of you.” Her southern drawl felt foreign but warm.

“There is nothing more your services can offer me, therefore there is no point in further staying.” He watched the woman’s smile deepen with concern. He continued, “However, if I…feel like I should return, I will. Regardless of my injury, I must get back to work.” Connor shifted awkwardly on the bed; awkward and exposed. Hank had ridden with him to the hospital, despite Fowler’s aggressors to continue working, and came by daily to update him on the case and, at one point, bring him a change of clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed, feet firmly planted on the floor, shirt on his lap and blanket over his shoulders, half-dressed in front of the nurse, and he felt like he wasn’t wearing enough. Like he needed three jackets to simply hide his shame whereas, before, he could turn away and forget. Embarrassment burned like never before.

Nonetheless, Connor was not in danger. His life hadn’t hung in the balance. He needed to return to work. Not for the mission, not for Amanda, and not for Kamski. But for the victims of RA-nine, and for families and wives and husbands and children and parents who would be affected.

As Connor shrugged on his shirt, stuffy pain throbbed throughout his shoulder and chest and back and he clenched his jaw tight. The nurse frowned down at him and wiggled her fingers, whispering, “Here, let me.” She shooed his hands away and said, “If you’re insisting on leaving, I legally can’t stop you. But I do hope you be careful. Any sudden movements and those stitches will open. And too much too fast will make you sick.” Connor stared at her fingers as they worked, buttoning the last few buttons and smoothing out the collar of his shirt. “Don’t lift your arms above your head for another few weeks. Apply medications that’ll be on _this list_ ,” She held up a packet of papers. “And take your antibiotics every twelve hours. Don’t need to be on the dot, but just don’t forget a dose.”

Connor nodded. The nurse turned around, to a cart behind her, and revealed a sling. “And don’t forget to wear this for at least a good week or two. You don’t need it but it’ll help.”

Connor knew all of this. He had known the procedures for gunshot wounds and gunshot grazes. He had known that he would be administered ciprofloxacin, likely, to counteract any threats of viral or bacterial infections in the wound and in his own weakened body. He had known that he would be recovering for months and would likely need a form of physical therapy, even for his simple grazed shoulder. He had known that the sling would stop him from stretching the skin on his shoulder unnecessarily and damaging his shoulder further.

He had known all of it. Just as he had known the truth. He had always known the truth. He was being manipulated. Amanda had manipulated him. Kamski had toyed with him. And, without them, he was free. Strangely enough, Connor compared it to that of a teenager finally moving away from their parents and going to college. The sense of independency was liberating and nerve-wracking all at once. He had escaped them, but now he was alone.

For the first time in a long, _long_ time, Connor felt utterly alone and helpless.

But he was free.

And it _hurt_ to be free. The pain from his shoulder made everything pulse from the teeth in his skull to the bones in his feet but he was free. He could do without the gunshot wound but, if that was what it took to realize that Kamski’s pain and Amanda’s pain was not _his_ pain, then he would take thousands of wounds. Thousands, for the one revelation that he was not them and no longer had to conform to them.

He wanted to solve the case for everyone else. He wanted to save lives. He wanted to _give_ lives back to those who felt robbed of them. And he would. Because that was not Amanda’s agenda. That was his own. He wound solve the case and go back home to Chloe. He would resign his post working under Amanda and truly be rid of her.

Connor couldn’t help but grin, turning his head down to smile at his toes.

In the doorway, Hank’s shy knock shook him from his thoughts. The lieutenant loomed, slipping through with a clearing of his throat. “Hey, you…you’re already ready to go?” Hank appeared genuinely confused, eyebrows knitted tight together. Connor had told him, yesterday, as he had sat on the bed fidgeting and listening to the case updates, that he had planned to leave soon. Soon, in Connor’s eyes, meant within twenty-four hours. Soon, to Hank it seemed, meant much, much longer.

“Correct, lieutenant.” Connor stood up quickly. His vision sharpened for a moment and ears popped before he willed everything back to normal. “Please inform captain Fowler that I will be returning to my desk tomorrow morning.”

“All right…” Hank glanced around the hospital room for anything stray Connor had left behind. He received the packet of papers and medication bag from the nurse as Connor strained to slip on his shoes and fasten his belt around his waist. Hank turned to Connor as Connor finished tucking his shirt into his pants and slipped the sling over his head. The nurse helped him fasten it before Hank appeared, his hand hovering behind Connor’s back, and he moved to guide them from the room. “All right, let’s go, then, kid.” Hank nodded to the nurse. “Thanks for, uh, everything and all that.”

Connor turned, eyes snapping down to her nametag – Molly – before jumping back up to her eyes. “Thank you very much.” he said. The nurse smiled big and wide.

Hank smelled of alcohol. Reeked of it, in fact. Connor was surprised the hospital security had let him through the front doors of the parking garage, let alone into the building itself. His steps were fluid but shaky, his large hands jittery and shoved deep into his pockets. Hooked over his arm was Connor’s own coat, looking astonishingly small compared to the rest of Hank. It, too, would likely be dipped in the stench of Hank’s cheap beers and whiskeys. The man had always drank beer or whiskey or sometimes both.

They reached the front doors of the hospital, a mere two right turns, two hallways, and one double door away, and Hank stopped abruptly and twisted sharply on his feet. “Oh, here, get this on.” He pulled the jacket away from his arm and shook it out. “It’s snowing like crazy out there.” He slipped it over Connor’s shoulders, helping him to get his uninjured arm through the sleeve, before he rushed to the doors and outside into the snow.

Connor hesitated.

Emotions, while present throughout his entire life, were still new. They still felt just as confusing and irritating to him as they did when he was a toddler, angry about the things he didn’t understand, scared sick about what he was feeling because it made no sense and it hurt him inside.

Hank’s emotions scared him more than his own. Connor’s emotions were sticky and annoying, never ceasing to let up, glued like clear tar to his skin, invisible but still a nuisance. Hank’s, however, were weighted with centuries of grief, blackened and charred and disgusting, molding over his features, making him look ill with the heft of his depression.

Connor was free to do as he pleased. And what pleased him was the safety of his one real friend – someone who wasn’t his therapist _and_ his friend, for once – but he was unsure as to how to confront Hank. What would he say? What _could_ he say? What had happened to Cole Anderson? What had happened all those months ago? Was this the price of his freedom? Escaping from the shackles of Amanda only to watch those around him being dragged down by something he couldn’t fight?

Nothing made sense yet Connor knew what he had to do.

It was a matter of how…

Hank turned around when he noticed Connor’s lack of presence next to him. He looked through the glass doors and waved Connor forward. Connor steeled his thoughts, focusing on the ‘how to fix him’ instead of ‘what if I don’t fix him’ or the possibility of inevitable failure. He stepped through the doors and a blast of cold rippled through his body.

“Car’s over here, Connor.” Hank pointed to the parking garage. “Let’s go. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“Lieutenant.” Connor’s voice echoed in the snow. “Lieutenant, I must speak to you about something.”

Hank’s face remained crinkled and still. “Right _now?_ You can’t do it in the _car_?”

The car was too confining. Too restricted. There was nowhere to escape should Hank feel trapped or Connor feel overwhelmed. “No, lieutenant, I must speak to you in an open area. It has been shown that, when confronted with negative stimulus in conversation, the chances of repercussions exponentially increase when in the confines of crowded spaces such as vehicles or elevators.” Connor paused, scratching the side of his head. “Additionally, your car gets…uncomfortably warm.”

“You don’t like the heater?” Hank mumbled.

“I appreciate the gesture, but warm air without circulation makes me ill.”

Hank asked, “So you want me to turn off the heater…in the dead of winter?”

“No.” Connor struggled to see where the conversation was going. “No, I simply…lieutenant, please do not change the subject.”

“I’m not. You said the heater makes you uncomfortable. But I like the heat. So you wanted to talk then we’ll talk.” Hank threw his arms out. “Let’s talk.”

“Lieutenant, I have questions regarding your drinking this evening…”

Hank silenced. The snow fell soundlessly around them, amplifying Connor’s strained breaths and Hank’s tense wheezing. He dropped his arms to his sides. It sounded like bullets against the snowfall.

“Let’s go.” Hank turned around. He began his march to the car garage.

Connor trailed slowly after him, nearly slipping every few steps. His legs were weak and wobbly, shoulder still aching, head pounding with exertion. “Lieutenant. Please slow down. We need to talk…”

“I don’t want to talk, Connor. Get in the fucking car or walk home.” Hank snapped.

Connor retorted, “The hotel is approximately one-point-six miles away. I am perfectly capable of walking if you insist--”

Hank whipped around. “Shut your mouth and get in the _goddamn car_.”

The hostility was not unfounded but still shocking. Connor stared, mouth open to keep talking, as Hank stumbled the rest of the way to his car, parked in one of the first spots in the garage. Connor follow along, finding himself increasingly distressed as he sat down in the passenger’s seat. Hank jerked the car in reverse and barreled out of the garage and down the snowy street.

 

 

_20 November 2018 – 01:34.49_

_Address: Unknown_

_Riverside Park – Important to Hank_

The car stilled in the parking lot and Hank eased off the steering wheel, his knuckles still white and face still red. The heater, for once, was off, letting the cold seep through the cracks in the windows and seams of the doors. Hank pulled the stick shift back into park and jumped out of the car rather quickly. Connor watched through the rearview as he yanked open the trunk and revealed a six-pack of beer, the case already missing a bottle.

The park was silent and empty, eerie in the black cover of night. The snow had nearly stopped, only dropping a handful of flakes at a time, the white glistening in the hot orange glows of the lampposts around the park. Distantly, the Detroit bridge flickered as cars passed over it, their headlights obscured by the haze of the darkness.

Connor opened his door slowly, the creaking loud and echoing. Hank had dropped himself over onto a bench by the river, knowing fully well that Connor was still there, but Connor had still wanted to avoid spooking him into a more irritable mood.

He closed the car door quietly and padded through the snow, keeping his eyes trained on Hank’s slumped shoulders and shaky hands, watching him tip the bottle back and guzzle its contents. He stopped next to him, standing stiff, unsure of what to say as he fidgeted, mind racing, thoughts bouncing around. Not once had he believed he would need to use his emotions so specifically. He wasn’t interrogating, nor was he investigating. He was to carefully approach Hank like one would a wounded wolf stuck in a fence. He was to probe cautiously, making sure his words were soft and meaning was clear.

Connor thought of what to say. How he would say it. He would ask, “What has been bothering you, Hank?” or “Let me help you, Hank?” or “What can I do for you, Hank?”

He opened his mouth and blurted out, “What’s wrong with you?” Connor tensed. Hank looked up at him slowly and Connor stammered, “I…apologies. I meant to ask that more…delicately…allow me to try again.” Hank rolled his eyes, glaring down into his bottle as he took another large swig. “Lieutenant, what…what happened to Cole…?” His voice was soft and unsure, his heart beating slower than his words and, as he glanced between his shoes and Hank’s eyes, he watched Hank melt on the bench.

“Why do you care…?”

Connor shoved his free hand into his jacket pocket. “I…I am…confused by my own emotions, lieutenant. But I am attempting to cope and learn from them. Thanks to you, that effort was newly discovered. I no longer feel the need to follow Amanda’s instructions to the tee, but merely, I wish to pursue this case on my own behalf and on the behalf of those who are in need. This decision came to me a few nights ago, after I was shot…”

Hank stiffened. He drank the beer as if it were lemonade. Connor continued, “I…I am…finding it difficult to relay exactly what I am feeling, but…” He huffed loudly and turned to Hank, saying, “Thank you. I want to say thank you. Because, if it weren’t for you, lieutenant, I would still be… _trapped_ by Amanda. I would still be unable to think freely for myself. I believe I have been picking up on your rather crude behaviors because, in truth, I…I… _fuck_ Amanda. _Fuck_ her, a-and Kamski. _Fuck_ them!”

Connor panted heavily, cheeks red and voice hoarse. He hadn’t realized he was practically yelling until he tirade was over and he was breathless and hot. Connor stared out at the water, listening to the shushing of the river’s current, before he looked back at Hank.

Hank was smiling. Smiling down into his bottle, leaving Connor to wonder, for a moment, if he was deliriously drunk and showing affection towards the drink or, perhaps, it was something Connor had said. Before he could question further, Hank chuckled low.

“What is amusing, lieutenant?” Connor asked.

Hank’s body curled around itself, shoulders slumped, head low, knees tight, protective of himself, as if he were vulnerable to all eyes around him, as if he were on stage to be nitpicked at and insulted. He whispered, “You’re a lot like him, you know…”

Connor’s face relaxed. He listened closely as Hank continued, “You’re a lot like Cole…before the red ice, of course. You…he was about your age when…” He moved to take another drink. The bottle was empty. Hank lowered the bottle slowly and rolled the neck between his palms. “And I tried to stop him, you know…but kids, they just…they never listen…”

Hank shifted on the bench. “He was just a kid…he should have never…And _you_ ,” Hank whipped around, staring up at Connor with glassy eyes. “ _You_ showed up and I just…I _couldn’t_ …” Hank sighed and turned away, face down towards his shoes, eyelids squeezed shut. In the dim glow of the lights, Connor saw tears roll to the tip of his nose and drop. He quieted his need to talk, to ramble, to try and make himself feel more comfortable by leaving, and listened.

“I used to take him here all the time. He loved it. Loved the architecture, loved the river, even when he was a little kid, he loved it here. And he was always talking to the park ranger. Always fascinated. He was six when he told me he wanted to be a police officer, too. But not like me. No, he wanted to be like that park ranger.

“I figure it was because that guy used to tell him stories for hours, sometimes. Telling Cole about how he saved some stray from falling in the river. Or how he rescued a kid when he was stuck in a tree. Just the little shit, because, you know, park rangers…they’re not, you know, like me. Like a detective and shit. They’re just here to make sure the world still goes ‘round and Cole wanted to be like him _so badly_. Eventually he decided that he wanted to be like me but _originally_ he wanted to be a park ranger right here, in particular. And that cheeky bastard encouraged Cole and told him that he was going to take his job one day…”

Hank’s eyes looked tired and dull, weathered by guilt, by raw, untouched, untamed horror of the past. Connor figured he had never spoken to a therapist or psychiatrist provided by the DPD; Hank was too prideful. But now, it was eating him away. Connor could see it. He had always seen it, he supposed. But now, as he stood before Hank, equally as vulnerable as the lieutenant, he could see it clearer than he could see the lamppost lights in the darkness.

“He got addicted to that shit.” Hank pushed on. “Red ice, I mean. He got addicted to it. He was climbing through the ranks so fast, and everyone knew his name. He wasn’t ‘Cole Anderson, son of the youngest lieutenant, Hank Anderson’, he was ‘Cole Anderson, the guy who’s going to surpass the youngest lieutenant, Hank Anderson, and become the youngest _captain_ ’ or some shit like that. He was going to be great. He was going to save lives. I just…I knew it. So I never worried and I never watched him because he was going to _save_ people. I never knew…I never knew he was depressed. I never knew. He left a note, so that’s how I found out, but I just never knew. I was so blinded by what he could have been or my own ambition or some stupid shit and I just never knew…He never told me.

“And then he got addicted to that bullshit. It took over his life, you know? And before I knew it, I…he was gone.” Hank blinked slowly. “He was no longer the son I had raised. He changed so fast. So _fast_. Nobody knew him anymore. He…that _monster_ wasn’t my son.”

He took a shuddering breath. “My son would never say those things to me. My son would never willingly do anything that he had done. My son would never _murder_ someone. My _son--!_ ” His voice broke. “My _son_ …Cole… _my Cole_ …he would never…he murdered a little girl for those _fuckers_ and I had to…I was the first responder, I _had to_ …”

Connor’s heart stilled. All he could hear was the wind and the waves and distant hums of cars on the bridge. Hank cried silently, the only indication was the shaking of his back and the tears slipping down his cheeks. He dropped the bottle, it landing soundlessly in the snow, and he covered his face, head shaking in his hands. “I had to _kill my son!_ ” he cried out, wailing, sobbing uncontrollably. “I had to _shoot_ my _little boy!_ ”

The silence was deafening. Connor couldn’t speak. His voice froze in his throat. He could only watch as Hank screamed out, hiding himself from the world with his hands, cursing everyone he could think of, cursing Fowler, Reed, Perkins, _Connor_ , trapped in his own agony, unable to think clearly, unable to speak freely, unable to feel anything but hurt. And Connor couldn’t say a thing. He knew the feeling of the former so well that it became familiar but, as he stood there awkwardly, shaken, absorbing everything that Hank had just said and unable to truly process the amount of agony the man had been going through all this time, he found himself at a loss. He had never cared for someone in his entire life. His parents had given him a cushioned life. Chloe had helped him when Kamski beat him senseless or Amanda had twisted his mind.

Hank…Hank was so fragile and Connor had no idea what to do.

What could he say? He barely understood his own emotions. He could barely handle himself. What was he to do? How could he help someone so ruined when he, himself, was faulty with broken parts, too?

Connor rubbed his fingers against his palm, breathing sharp. He hated the feeling of his own skin. He felt strange in his own body. Overstimulated by himself. How ironic. Everything was too much and yet, he reached over, hesitantly, and dropped his palm down on Hank’s shaky shoulder. He expected more stimulation, more confusing feelings, more pain, more buzzing and loudness and inescapable sensations. Instead, his mind numbed.

Hank quieted his sobs. “I thought…you hated being touched…” Hank mumbled past his hands.

Connor looked away, out towards the skyline. “It appears that if I am the one to initiate it, then it’s not as…bad.” It was the truth. A difficult truth, one he had just learned. As he pressed his hands into the rough leather of Hank’s coat, he found himself easing into a comfortable place. Somewhere where he was in control of the situation still, but able to give himself up, just a little bit, and give that piece of himself to someone else. He was able to provide comfort. He was able to be something other than a mindless hunting dog for the FBI. He was able to be a normal, breathing, _feeling_ human being.

Connor rubbed his thumb across the fabric and exhaled slowly. For the first time in over a decade, he felt contempt with his actions, his words, and his own emotions. “We’ll solve this case, lieutenant. Even if it is the last thing we do, we will find Cole’s killers…”

Hank muttered, “ _I_ killed him, Connor…I just _told_ you--”

“No, lieutenant. You’ve said it yourself. That was not your son. Your son physically died by your hands, admittedly, but mentally and emotionally, the part of him you remember, was killed long before that incident. And whoever that was is still walking the streets of Detroit. So we’ll find them. And we’ll bring them to justice. For Cole, and for the rest of those who have suffered.” Connor turned to Hank and looked him in the eyes. “I promise, lieutenant. We will stop RA-nine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! Feel free to comment, give critique or praise, or leave a suggestion in the comments!
> 
> OKAY SO FIRST JUST CHECK OUT @sochiika ON TWITTER BECAUSE THEY MADE FANART FOR THIS FIC AND I'M STILL SHOOOOOK. FUCKING LOOK AT THIS: https://twitter.com/sochiika/status/1044569559456407554 IT'S BEAUTIFUL!
> 
> So Hank's pretty fucked, and so is Connor, so that's fun. All good times. And now you guys know what happened with Hank. Which is SUPER DEPRESSING. Like I was trying not to spoil it or anything this entire time and now I am like OH DAMN SON THAT WAS ROUGH SHOULD I EVEN WRITE THIS IS THIS OKAY? And I guess it's here to stay so whatever.
> 
> On to the writing time...
> 
> So yes, this took TWO WEEKS just to write. You guys had to wait TWO WEEKS for, what, 5k? And I'm so sorry. I've had a lot of shit going on for about a month or so, and it's sort of knocking me on my ass. But I'm trying my best. Really. I want to keep updating but it's really hard to do so when you're not so good mentally/emotionally. You know?
> 
> OH AND HEY TO THE PERSON WHO I KNOW IN REAL LIFE WHO'S READING THIS: DON'T STRESS OUT. I'M FINE.
> 
> Ignore that everyone else. They worry a lot and I just need to PUT THEM ON BLAST SO THEY DON'T WORRY.
> 
> Okay. Anyway, thank you for reading this chapter, thank you for ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT. Everyone. Truly. You're amazing. And oh man so many people are reading this I wasn't expecting this much attention haha. It's nerve-wracking as hell but also really nice? I don't know? Good times.
> 
> If you see an error, please let me know and I will correct it as soon as I see your comment.
> 
> \--L


	10. Unfortunate Update

Hey, so I've got some really,  _really_ bad news if you couldn't tell by the summary update on the fic.

I'm discontinuing this.

I can give you all my explanations but I really don't want to. So just know that, while I want to continue this,  _I really do_ , I can't due to personal reasons. So I'm sorry about that. You're allowed to be disappointed, I would be too. Hell,  _I am disappointed in myself_ because I want to finish this and make you guys happy. But I just can't.

I'm really,  _really_ sorry. 

In order to avoid backlash, I'm also deleting this account as well as the twitter account I have for this. So you'll never hear from me again.

I can't apologize enough. I can't.

But I hope you guys understand.

It's been a  _beautiful_ ride with you guys, and I enjoyed every comment and every praise I got. It motivated me to write this far. Believe it or not, but I was planning on stopping at chapter  _three_. So we made it  _far_. Just not far enough...

 

_**SPOILERS-ISH AHEAD** _

I'll give you guys some closure, though. So if you don't want "spoilers" and just want to leave the fic as it was, skip the bullets!

  * Hank and Connor's relationship was going to be so good, you guys. It was going to be fantastic, to the point where Connor and Hank trusted each other implicitly, just like they do in the good-ending of the game.
  * North was going to be the main antagonist behind it all. She was going to be controlling Markus, and Markus was basically a puppet. Oof, the fight between Connor and North was going to be  _rough_.
  * Simon was going to be there. It was going to be beautiful and gay because, in all honesty, Markus and Simon romance should have been an option. I'm disappointed in Cage for not allowing that, but whatever...
  * Amanda was going to make an appearance, at the very end. Long story short (literally), Hank was going to chew her ass out.
  * There was going to be an epilogue, one where Hank waited around for Connor two weeks after the main series ended and Connor was going to tell Hank that he quit the FBI to join the DPD. It was going to be magical.
  * Connor and Chloe were going to be together and it was going to be sunshine and daisies for  _days_.



 

Basically, that's all I've got. I had plans. I had expectations. I just put too much pressure on myself and I couldn't handle it.

Thank you guys for everything. It was really,  _really_ fun.


End file.
